


The Doctrine of Your Crew and Mine

by epicionly



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Enterprise crew - Freeform, Family, Gen, Psuedo-Court-Martial, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers, Warnings in the author's note at the end for those who need it!, star trek big bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 13:46:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 48,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicionly/pseuds/epicionly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Jim wakes up in the hospital from his coma, he discovers something is going on. Mostly that Jim is going to be tried for treason against the Federation, the rest of his senior crew is going to be reassigned to other ships, Bones is going to lose his license, and Spock is facing court martial and a possible death penalty. Have a nice day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Breathes in deeply. Breathes out. Hello! This is my second big bang. It was originally intended for K/S Big Bang, but got out of hand. Now it's for Star Trek Big Bang. Disclaimer about the court-martial stuff; I did what research I could, but I'm no expert nor speed-learner, so inaccuracies are my own.
> 
> Art: [squarededdie](http://squarededdie.livejournal.com/6706.html)  
> Go look! PLEASE CHECK IT OUT BECAUSE IT IS KIND OF AMAZING  
> AlphaMuse: [Syph](http://mygodjim.tumblr.com)  
> Betas: [Nikanika](http://vojir.tumblr.com) and [Jay](http://yourhandiheld.tumblr.com)  
> Cheerleader: [ Momo](http://spockprimebigbang.tumblr.com/post/65288017634/)  
> 

Being in a hospital was kind of a bitch. Of course, that was after Jim entertained and exhausted the possibilities of the idea of using his sickbed as a bumper car. As well as an escape route.

If Jim wasn’t going to die from radiation poisoning, he sure was going to die of utter boredom. It wasn’t even really boredom, it was cabin fever. Maybe it was just because it was the hospital; Jim had never really been a fan. At the moment, it felt like his internal clock, his immune system, and his mind were coming back from being three times stoned and ten kinds of fucked up. It wasn’t pretty, and he really needed it to be over.

And clearly, Bones at some point in time had decided to make both their lives easier and spoil Jim rotten outside of his physicals, because Jim didn’t remember being tested so much in his life. While it may have had something to do with the fact that he literally was a documented case of someone coming back from the dead, it was less cultural phenomenon and more of a team of highly trained specialists determined to figure out what the fuck was wrong with Jim Tiberius Kirk. Well, if determination could have a direct correlation to the amount of time proportionally spent both in the hospital and under medical jurisdiction.

Jim could’ve told them everything a long time ago, but there really was a reason Bones was his primary physician and nobody else knew shit about what happened when he was a kid. Bones knew enough to do something about it, but there were still more tests, more consultations, and he was seeing more doctors and personnel than he’d ever thought possible existed in the entirety of the Federation. There was also, in addition to the load, a ridiculously huge lull where Jim had to be detoxed like a good man come back to life after radiation poisoning.

“Yes, it was kind of dark.”

“No, I couldn’t hear anything.”

“I wasn’t aware I was in a coma until my primary physician told me.” While stabbing me with two hypos.

In summary: “Look, I was going to piss myself when I was dying and I was really scared. Yeah, no, I didn’t feel any pain, and then the next second I was in a hospital.”

All in all, repeat ad nauseam. Send help, SOS, ... --- ...

“I seem to have increased my usual number of therapists,” Jim noted after an exhausting round of ‘do you know how to swallow’, ‘do you think you can swallow’, ‘can you swallow for me now’, ‘can you sit up’, ‘can you lie down’, ‘can you do the hokey pokey and turn yourself around’.

There were way too many jokes about their inane predictability to keep a sympathetic, straight face, but Jim was going to hurt someone at this rate. Or himself. He winced as he worked his jaw, sitting up straight. Sixty times did a happy camper make.

Bones snorted from where he was working, mostly because he probably felt really sorry that Jim was alone here for hours when not with another medical professional of some sort (apparently if you were a Commander, you got the perk of a private room, perpetual boredom, and most visitors getting screened out because of low clearance levels). Over the course of a few days, he’d actually been keeping Jim company, even if it really just literally was Bones’s company.

“Bones,” he whined. “Did you hear me? I said—”

“Yes,” Bones said, staring angrily at a line in his PADD like it personally divorced him and took the whole damn planet. Jim would’ve felt sorry for him if he didn’t know that Bones was actually really good at misdirecting. “I heard you. Good for you.”

“So yeah,” Jim continued eagerly, “Lots.”

“I’m so proud of you, Jimmy, I really am.” Jim watched as he made a particularly vicious circle of some text with his stylus and went to town on it. “But this report is due someday, and maybe it’s tonight.”

It would’ve been nice to imagine that it was something scathing like, _Who the fuck taught you how to write_ , but then Bones was actually surprisingly very couth with written words—it was just his bedside manner that wasn’t the best. As it was, there was only so much fun a hospital PADD could offer Jim before bothering Bones became the next best thing. Once you started trying to reprogram the source code for the Children’s Games section so that holos of the Enterprise flew over the screen and a ‘Yeehaw’ followed it, it was definitely time to stop.

“Hey, Bones—”

“Oh look,” Bones said loudly, elongating his vowels into a Southern drawl. “It’s time for your injection.” It took Jim off guard, which was why probably why Bones smiled and Jim flinched. Contrary to popular belief, Jim was still pretty sure he had a self-preservation instinct. Just hidden better than most, was all.

“Come on, Bones. Do we really need to? I mean, I’m good and everything—” He even tried to flex, in a desperate attempt to show himself at the peak of fitness, and most certainly not needing a hypo, never mind the fact that Bones would never give him a shot that did worse than it helped.

Bones pinched somewhere around his triceps—Jim yelped and decidedly didn’t drop the bass.

“I diluted the goddamn thing and practically raised its children in the lab,” Bones said unsympathetically, taking up the biological sample kit and opening it. Jim figured that kind of attitude was a prerequisite when it came to being a doctor. “Take some responsibility.”

“You telling me I’m the father?”

“Neck,” Bones ordered, rolling his eyes.

“Fuck!”

Bones really didn’t disappoint. It felt like he’d used a vacuum instead of a hypo to shove in something much bigger than a fist, and to suck out Jim’s jugular vein in the process.

“Don’t be an infant,” Bones said, inspecting it. Which, hey, Bones wasn’t the one the hypo went into 90% of the time. “Feel anything?”

“Nothing,” Jim said, sore and bitter. Because he was a bitter human being. “I feel the exact same as I did about thirty seconds ago, hence no need to hypo.”

Maybe if he programmed it on his medical bracelet, he could actually convince someone to believe it was legitimate.

Rubbing the side of his neck, he watched Bones set the used hypo back in its holder. There were roughly two more vials left in the sample kit. After the case cinched shut, Bones waved his scanner once, and the readings on his tricorder registered Jim’s core temperatures, his respiratory rate, and probably the fact that Jim felt a bit nauseous.

“Any word on when I can get out of here?”

Bones took a cursory specific heart reading and reinputted the data onto his own PADD. “Much as I’d love to put you on permanent bed rest, can’t risk it.” He shone a light into Jim’s eye for what was probably the fifth time this hour, snapping it shut and then taking more readings on his tricorder to gauge the reaction. “What with the radiation and all. You’re doing better. What are you due for?”

“Uh, my schedule? I think they put it on the sheet.” He tried not to look like he knew exactly what they put on.

“Jim,” Bones said warningly, like it was Jim’s fault—which hey, he only looked at it.

Time for topic change. “So, what’s your opinion?”

“I want to keep you in for observation.” In Jim’s opinion, it was really easy to tell when Bones wasn’t telling everything, because he was a horrible liar. Except when he was bluffing; then Bones turned out to be really good at having a poker face. Jim’s credits were still smarting from the loss of their brethren.

“I note the use of ‘I’. But what does objectivity say?”

“Objectivity says to keep you in for observation,” Bones said in a voice that meant, Nice try, but no.

Dammit. Jim was definitely going to go stir crazy at this rate.

He tried to wordlessly outstare Bones, even when he heard telltale sound of a door sliding open behind them both.

“Pardon me.”

Sometimes some of the bridge crew showed up, but on the most part, everyone had shit to handle. Jim could only comm them so many times before he started feeling guilty. He had a feeling too, that half the paperwork that was coming through his inbox (that he had really yet to look at by threat of Bones) wasn’t the full amount.

Look behind me, he tried to convey through his eyebrows.

Bones conveyed with his eyebrows something along the lines of, For real, Jim, I’m getting real tired of your shit.

Someone cleared his throat. Bones looked over Jim’s shoulder (victory!), and Jim turned around to look too.

Considering Jim only sent one comm that was about a week ago, it was a surprise to see the being himself. A grin spread on his face.

“Spock! Where’d you come from?”

“A scientific procedure combining the genetics of my parents,” Spock said gravely, probably aware that what he’d said was the perfect material with which to make a semi-inappropriate joke.

Jim almost snorted. “No, I mean, what—what brings you here?”

“It is to my understanding that visiting hours are from 1200 to 1800,” replied his first officer, who looked a mix of pleased by the attention he was finally getting, and unperturbed. Or maybe Jim was reading Spockese wrong. He’d have to compare notes with Uhura later.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Bones said dryly, like Spock’s opener was about as new as replicated bread. “Am I going to be the third wheel here again?”

“I dunno, Bones,” Jim interjected casually. “If you have a little bit more of the Southern accent, I think you could capture the heart of any gentlebeing here.”

“Your invitation, Commander,” Spock said, ignoring the exchange. “I am here due to that.”

“Really?” Jim asked, before he could help himself. There shouldn’t have been anything in the comm that betrayed how bored Jim was, or the fact that Jim really just needed someone to talk to that could offer to spend as much time with Jim as he was awake. Even back in Academy Jim wasn’t prone to sleeping early. It was pretty suspicious. While Spock was all for observing polite social norms, it was never more than a cursory visit.

Then again, considering Jim had been knocked out right after they’d confirmed he was alive, now was probably a really great time to figure out what had happened, and Jim definitely wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.

“What the hell do you even write in your comms, Jim?” Bones demanded as he packed his stuff, before Jim could even open his mouth any more.

Either the good doctor always liked to be the last word, or he was lingering for some other reason.

“Logical poetry,” Jim decided on, at the same moment Bones demanded, “Love letters?”

Some other reason it was.

“My frequency brings all the Vulcans to the shipyard?” Jim shrugged. “I don’t know. Glad to have you here, Spock, seriously.”

“Well.” Bones cast a wry look at Spock. “Don’t stress him out.”

To Jim’s chagrin, both of them looked pointedly at him.

“I will keep his stress levels adequate,” Spock reassured him. “However,” he continued, and Jim thought there was something in Spock’s eye that was almost contemplative, “I can only assume responsibility for so much.”

“Get a room,” Bones grumbled.

“We are already in one,” Spock said, raising an eyebrow.

It was apparently really worth the dirty look.

“So how’s my Lady?” Jim asked, after Bones left, but not before Bones tapped the chronometer, and Jim made a face of I don’t speak Standard in response. He was probably going to be in for it later, but it was kind of worth the smug satisfaction of “being an infant” and seeing Bones roll his eyes. Jim was making it an official pastime.

“The Enterprise is functional,” Spock replied, without batting an eyelash to the antics that he had bore witness to. Maybe it was Jim’s imagination, but Spock seemed to be getting along a lot better with Bones. “We arrived somewhat unconventionally, but for the most part unharmed due to Lieutenant Sulu’s expertise.”

Unconventional was pretty much the conventional for the Enterprise, and anybody except Sulu at the helm would’ve been intentionally starship hazarding. “Scope of the damages?”

“For the ship, minor at most if compared to our usual fare. The temporary fix to the warp core injectors was sufficient to keep most of it at minimum. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the destruction caused at,” Spock hesitated, “landing.”

“Landing, huh,” Jim said thoughtfully. A sudden image of the Enterprise crashing into the ocean and several blocks of buildings appeared in Jim’s mind, and he cringed. Scotty probably had a lot to say about that. “Who’s Starfleet pinning the blame on this time?” He hoped it wasn’t Sulu. The two of them had a transcendent bond, dammit. One day, Jim was going to go all-out name-dropping for Sulu to get his own ship. Because damn, if Sulu conquered that, Jim was betting his stripes that Sulu could practically conquer anything.

“It is difficult to say at this point.” If there was some kind of tell for when Vulcans were trying to give you the bad news easier, Jim really wanted to know. At this point, he couldn’t really judge anything until he saw the damage report. Which nobody was letting him have. “However, the report should be sent to your inbox when I update the bulletin.” Except Spock, as it were. Who raised an eyebrow as though he knew exactly what Jim was thinking.

Jim grinned, feeling like he was taking part in a shared private joke. “I knew you were my favourite for a reason, Commander.”

“On the contrary, Commander. Your ‘favourite’ has a tendency of rotating amidst the senior officers when it suits you.”

It was as weird as hell to be the same rank as Spock, come to think of it. “Wow, don’t make me take the favourite away, Spock. That bites.”

The accompanying lull in conversation wasn’t tense or awkward, but a good silence. Spock still stood at parade rest, as he’d been since the beginning. It made Jim feel kind of bad when all Jim was doing was lying here, but at the same time, he felt kind of…gleeful, if that was a good word to describe it.

“So, uh,” Jim said, trying to make himself comfortable. There really wasn’t much room on a sickbed, unfortunately. Being in a coma for two weeks meant you only needed to be turned over every so often. “What’ve you all been up?”

Spock looked on with interest. “The passing time hardly merits any interest. I have come across nothing irregular.”

“Well, yeah, I’d like to know.”

Spock raised the other eyebrow. “As my superior officer?”

Jim paused, and studied him. Was this…supposed to be some kind of message? “Nah,” he settled for, smile turning into a grin. “As a friend.” Damn, that was kind of cheesy.

“A friend would not have the clearance to ask.” Spock lowered both his eyebrows, so he probably thought the same. “It would be more prudent to exercise your authority.”

Jim snorted. “Oh, come on, we share the same rank now,” he griped. If Jim really didn’t know better, he’d say—what the hell, he knew better. Spock was sassing him right now. The realization made him laugh. “Can we leave that at the door for just a second? I’m the one stuck here missing out. You wanna tell me you decided to take up dancing, it’ll make my day, my orders or no.”

“I have decided to take up dancing.” Something flickered in his eyes.

“Okay, now that’s humouring me,” Jim grinned. “What else have you developed since I was gone asides from a sense of humour?”

\--

Day 10 (of being non-comatose) in the hospital. This was really bad for his health.

Rarely anything was good for Jim these days. Whatever had been in Khan's blood (apparently space-born and the genetically-superior did not mix well), it was messing him up long enough that Jim was practically here to be bored out of his mind. It wasn’t that it wasn’t a match, but according to Bones--who Jim saw less and less--it was just the modified platelets that were trying to funk around. Fix everything with Jim that had been wrong from the start, he didn’t say, but Jim was pretty sure that was half of why his liver scans looked so good, and probably why his internal organs were having a riot the other half. But damn, it kind of felt of good to know he wouldn’t be having cancer down the road anytime soon.

Right now, he was bloated from the oxygen compound that had just been injected into his bloodstream, and if rolling onto his side wasn’t an option, he was definitely staying put right here.

“Washroom?” Chekov asked rather innocently, poking his head in as the door slid open. For all accounts, it was a bad attempt at a joke, but the smile on Chekov’s was more than enough for ten points, even if what he was hefting in looked less like a present, and more like some sort of off-planet acquisition. At the centre lay a single pink hand that plucked at the grass surrounding it. Around it in an almost tier formation sat several fruits of various neon bright colours.

Jim grinned. “Get in here,” he said, thankful that the monotony of the hour was going to be disturbed by a directionally challenged navigator and his fruit basket from art class.

“Hikaru has come as well,” Chekov informed him, giving the basket another full-body tug. Maybe it had something to do with him still being young, but it dwarfed him twice in height.

Jim looked pointedly at what he was lugging in, then at the hand that had begun picking up the balls and weighing them in its palm. “In the basket? My, what big hands you have, Mr. Sulu.”

“He is coming,” Chekov corrected, undaunted, the joke flying by him. It was interesting how carefully Chekov arranged it, as well as how he petted the hand’s palm twice before giving it a handshake. This probably wasn’t meant for eating, Jim thought as Chekov instructed him to do the same. It purred under his touch, and wriggled happily.

“That is a good plant,” Chekov insisted noticing Jim’s inspection, “Hikaru bred her himself.”

“He breeds plants?”

“Yes, I breed plants,” Sulu said, making his way into the room. He had a holo in one hand, and what looked to be an ancient player in another. “Her name’s Gertrude, and she’s a weeper plant, so you treat her nice.”

“Or she’ll make me weep?”

“No,” Sulu said with a show of teeth. “I will.”

It looked like the two of them had come straight from a gardening party. Grass stains adorned their knees, Sulu’s uniform had dirt around his elbows, as did his face, and Chekov had a big spot of brown on the side of his cheek where he’d probably tried to rub it off. Somewhere along the line, a few twigs and petals had attached to his curly hair.

It was then that Jim realized what he’d smuggled in. “Fencing 101?” Jim asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Hey, I promised.” He pressed both player and holo into Jim’s hands with a knowing look. “Just try not to get them confiscated.”

They talked a while, Sulu about a simulator program he’d taken for piloting a shuttle around the surface of a planet that had twice the gravitational pull of the average planet, and Chekov about the fact that he was challenging some records for both 3D chess and a mathematical formulae competition. At this rate, Chekov was saying, he would accumulate enough credits to satisfy any man’s retirement pension.

“What’re you gonna do with all the credits?” Jim asked, amused.

Chekov gave a grand show of thinking, his eyebrows furrowing impressively for someone who was under twenty. “It would be a good time to teach you all to drink well, yes? Drink vodka like water.”

“I’ll stick with sake,” Sulu said.

Chekov’s response was more disapproving than a grandmother’s realization that none of her children knew how to calculate to the ninth decimal place. “Sake is like muddied Russian water,” he said slowly and purposefully, eyes narrowing.

Sulu shouted something loudly in what was probably a mix of Japanese and Russian, if the sudden delight on Chekov’s face was anything to go by. “Uh,” Sulu said in Standard, when he noticed Jim’s eyebrow. “Don’t repeat that to anyone you know.”

“Your Russian was very good,” Chekov said gleefully. “Was it not, Kep—Commander?”

“Sure scared the pants off me,” Jim replied good-naturedly, watching as the two of them continued to bicker. “I didn’t catch that last bit? Hooy-something.”

Apparently that was opening the floor to Russian insults. Jim learned about the fact that ‘ripping someone’s ass and poking out their eyes’ was a thing—which really begged the question exactly innocent Chekov was here, roughly four equivalents to calling someone a stupid guy—which also opened the question to how you literally had four homonyms going on here, how Durak was both a word for an idiot and a Russian card game, and a whole lot of shitting was going around when Russians started swearing.

Eventually, the conversation started delving away from how many ways you could insult someone with Russian. As Sulu and Chekov discussed amongst themselves the merits of whether or not they’d be better off going out to eat or returning to their respective divisions to get some more work done, Jim took the time to check his inbox.

He figured Starfleet at least was on the list until it fucked him over. It wasn’t even an over ambitious wish, really. Exhibit A, he’d gotten some sort of a leeway last year, what with Starfleet PR taking over the brunt of the media storm so Jim didn’t have to. It’d made a hell of a difference having that direct intervention compared to being shoved into the spotlight as a kid. Exhibit B, he’d been allowed to leave the first officer spot open until the last minute. There might’ve been some actual comms that Jim had responded to with the most eloquent fuck-you possible (he was sure only Pike had really understood), but it’d worked in his favour and that was all Jim was concerned with. All in all, Jim figured that Starfleet was going to at least cut him a break.

In truth, Starfleet just turned out to be really passive-aggressive. When they had enough of your shit, they waited politely until you woke up from that coma, gave you time to orient yourself, and wrote you the most scathing messages of scathing messages, demanding that you appear in court before a panel. Jim was barely three seconds from responding to a jibe, when he glanced down, read the first few lines, and closed his mouth entirely.

“I’m being tried,” he said, after he read the entire thing over three times. “For treason.” If there was hysteria in his voice, he didn’t hear it. His voice was strangely calm, but the words made something in his stomach jerk unpleasantly. Admiral Marcus’s ugly signature stared straight up at him.

“What?” Sulu asked. “Let me see.”

Wordlessly, Jim passed it over. Chekov moved to peer over Sulu’s shoulder, but neither of them said a word in the face of the convening order. It wasn’t that hard to figure it out.

“You knew about this.”

“What are you talking about?” Sulu asked, at the same time as Chekov said, “We did not think they would be doing it.”

Immediately, Chekov flinched. Sulu froze, a speck of guilt flashing on his face, before he wiped his expression neutral.

“Well,” Jim said, trying to be calm about this, but inwardly, all he could think about was that this went beyond just minor offenses. “Looks like we know how much Marcus told Starfleet.” If telling Starfleet was anything to go by, anyway.

Jim’s mission from Marcus was to take John Harrison out. At the time, he hadn’t been thinking, but it’d been more than the seventy-two torpedoes full of Khan’s crew. While it hadn’t been Jim’s preferred course of study, all student candidates on the command track at had mandatory current event seminars every week. So he knew enough about politics to say something about Klingon-Federation relations, but he didn’t know enough to say whether or not war really was coming.

“Do they know about Khan?” he asked.

“Yes.” “No.” The two of them looked at each other.

“We don’t know,” Sulu said finally, almost hesitant to look through the message even further, but Chekov leaned over and did so for him. There wasn’t much that bothered helmsmen in general if it didn’t have to do with piloting a starship, but there was probably a reason they worked well with navigators. “I think Uhura has some idea. You know how she’s always listening.”

Listening.

“Yeah, and I’ve been listening too,” Jim said, gritting his teeth. “I mean, clearly, there’s not much to do here.”

It came out snappier than he’d meant it. Chekov looked slightly taken aback and Sulu was decidedly neutral.

Jim took a deep breath. “Well, guess this probably was coming. Guess they want to make it official. Starfleet scandal goes out with a bang.”

It was kind of meant to lighten up the mood, but now that Jim had somehow dropped the bomb on them nobody really was laughing. He couldn’t blame either of them. While he liked to think of himself as one of the easier Starfleet officers to talk to, there was no way Jim was in the right state of mind enough to be courteous as well as honest. Still. His outburst had been uncalled for.

“Sorry.” He uncurled his fists.

“It’s okay,” Sulu said, without the lofty attitude employed by most people Jim had ever had the pleasure of apologizing to. He looked genuinely sympathetic, and Jim felt a little worse off.

Chekov put a finger on the screen wordlessly, and scrolled down the message. Then he scrolled back up. “Why treason, Commander?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“What do you mean why?” Sulu was now looking up at both of them. “I mean, if Marcus—”

“But there could be existing other charges, lesser offences, yes?” Chekov shook his head. “Treason is against the Federation. Against an Admiral it is not. That would be mutiny, Hikaru.”

That—that was actually a good question. Jim hadn’t thought about that; at the same time, the only thing was whirling in his head was the fact that Marcus must’ve done something. Between how long it would have taken Marcus to have gathered select personnel and how his starship had probably been optimized for following ship signatures, there would’ve been enough time to write up an investigations report on him.

He wasn’t really surprised. He hadn’t really been Marcus’s favourite, and Jim would have been lying if he said he wasn’t still angry about the original decision of the tribunal that he hadn’t even been permitted to stand before, the one that had taken away his ship, and had been meant to send him back to the Academy. The convening order now, he realized, was probably the other charges that hadn’t been brought up in the previous in the first place. Pike had done more than talk them out of it; he’d kept Jim from knowing there were any in the first place. He’d told Jim only what he’d needed to know. So maybe Marcus had helped contribute to it, but it’d been Jim’s recklessness the past year that’d pissed off who was left.

If that wasn’t coming back to bite him in the ass, Jim didn’t know what was.

“Admiral Marcus reportedly went out because I went against orders.” Jim leaned back against the pillows, still thinking. And what that meant, he realized, was that Marcus had been pulling this whole thing on his own, with private security and whatever he needed. “I mean, it’s not that hard to fake a transmission, or put in a report.”

Sulu nodded along. “The torpedoes too,” he said. “You probably weren’t on the bridge long enough to see the damage report on screen, but they packed one hell of a punch. And I’m betting there wasn’t a regulation permit for that—I mean, if the Federation president didn’t even know about the torpedoes.”

“What happened to the one I was in?”

“Uhm.” Chekov furrowed his eyebrows. “I am thinking it was taken, but I do not remember. Security was very thorough that day. The crew was in quarantine for a while.”

Good to know that they were trying to keep Khan under wraps, because Jim was pretty sure Starfleet didn’t need to reveal to the public about the fuckery that had happened. Whether or not Jim went off the track, or whether or not Marcus planned ahead, one of their Captains aiding a terrorist was not something PR would’ve even weighed as an option as public information.

“If he thought--”

The door slid open.

“--that was a great score, I don’t know how the future of our sports is going to be,” Jim finished with an exhale, glancing almost casually at the person who’d come in. His heart, on the other hand, was pounding. It probably didn’t help that Chekov had dropped the PADD and Sulu had just barely managed to catch it, but Sh’lia’s attention was focused on the weeper plant before zhe turned looked back at them all.

“I feel stereotypical saying this, but it’s time for your antibiotics and BPI.” With a pointed look at both of Jim’s visitors and then another one at Jim himself, zhe gestured out the door. “Which means, out, zhirs.”

“New doctor?” Sulu asked, as he returned Jim’s PADD to him, already logged out of his inbox and on a game page.

“Allergy specialist,” Jim replied, sighing heavily, and returning the goodbye wave Chekov sent him. Gertrude seemed a little sad from how she flopped around. “They’re doing desensitization. See you later?”

“Yeah,” Sulu said, “we’ll see you.”

\--

Gertrude was a very livable, friendly roommate, but after a while, she’d had to be returned to Sulu on the account that Jim was starting to develop hives. He’d watched sadly as she’d been wheeled away, but not before he’d slipped back Sulu’s homemade Fencing-How-To holo and player with her, with a message pressed into Gertrude’s very eager fingers.

If anyone could answer Jim’s questions, it’d have to be his communications officer.

\--

Jim figured the reason he wasn’t even out of this hospital was because he was on lockdown. Or something close to it. His only real saving grace was that by Federation law, you still weren’t allowed to put cameras in private patient rooms. Just in the public hallways. Jim was pretty good at skirting the frequency channels--it’d been a rewarding pastime in an otherwise delinquent youth—but there were only so many things you could go through on a hospital network.

The overview of military justice he was looking at didn’t help either. Jim had never had to deal with this; he’d never thought he’d needed to do so. Then again, he hadn’t expected Scotty would show up either.

“Thought you were on a training course,” Jim said surprised. It was the first time he’d seen Scotty since he’d knocked him out, and Jim wouldn’t have been surprised if Scotty decided to punch him in the face in revenge.

Scotty didn’t look upset, but he did look tired. He was dressed in dress uniform too, so either had been too tired to switch civvies or really couldn’t be bothered, if Jim knew him. Keenser wasn’t here either. “Aye, reckon I completed it about a few days ago,” he said rather heartily.

“Well, glad to have you back.” He took a careful look at the man before him. There wasn’t much, but there was something off. Intuition was the farthest thing from the most reliable source, and yet. “And not that I mind the visit, but what brings you around?” Somehow he didn’t really believe that Scotty was here to talk ships or whether or not the climate of training had agreed with him.

Scotty made a noncommittal noise. He shifted the PADD on his hands from side to side. “Loads o’ noise over at the Engineering docks, y’know,” he said. Jim waited a bit, but it was left at that.

“Commander Kirk tried for treason?” Jim suggested. He tried not to think about the other charges on the list, but it was pretty hard not to do.

“There’s that,” Scotty acknowledged, which meant that even Scotty had known about it at some point. Jim frowned. Scotty apparently took that as encouragement for him to continue. “S'not exactly news. MediaComm’s havin’ a shitstorm. All their noggins can’t get anythin’ else.”

“I haven’t seen any articles,” Jim said, surprised, eyeing the PADD in Scotty’s hands thoughtfully.

“Yeah, y’wouldn’t,” Scotty eased. “Hospital blocked ‘em, replaced 'em with safer stuff. Apparently, they didn’t want patients to get rowdy.”

“Explains the security beef up.” You weren’t exactly allowed to bring just anything in the hospital. And non-regulation PADDS weren’t on the list. Something that Scotty had in his possession right now. “And why I can’t piss on my own.”

“Oh, pardon, would y’like a hand for that?” Scotty asked. “Excuse me, my manners.”

“Go back to your engineering dock,” Jim said, leaning back. “They want their head dog-transporting maniac back.”

Scotty didn’t laugh, but there was a weak attempt at a grin. Their relationship wasn’t the same, Jim knew that. And he knew that when he’d been in the chamber, Scotty hadn’t said one word to him, had ignored him full outright because—god.

Jim knew what he’d placed on this man’s shoulders.

“So,” Jim said casually. “What’s with the PADD?”

“Oh, this? Well, who knows?” Scotty picked it up. “Sure, one of my own, but--” he looked at Jim guiltily enough that-- “Jim, been trying to let you down easy, but wasn’t really sure how to do it.”

“It can’t get worse.”

It was a deliberation for only two seconds. “Here to tell you that you’re under arrest,” Scotty said finally, passing it over. The surprise that Scotty had been waiting for didn’t register. Actually, Jim thought he was dealing with this really calmly, if his bluff wasn’t giving him away.

There was still something he couldn’t understand. Something was still off.

“Couldn’t delegate it?” Jim asked, knowing full well arrest orders were supposed to be delivered by the commanding officer or another commissioned officer ordered to do so. The PADD had just a single page, enough to be clear that Jim was to consider himself in arrest as, and remain within the limitations set. Which frankly, hospital rest, or hospital arrest?

He sent it to his inbox, watching grimly as it did so. In arrest, Jim was stripped of any command that would’ve otherwise been granted by his rank. It wasn’t a big issue now, but it might be one later.

“Err, assigned me to do, actually,” Scotty said. “Sorry about that.”

“That’s ironic,” Jim said, casting another eye on it. Maybe he should’ve felt bad about being deliberate, but all Jim could think of was that Scotty shouldn’t have been assigned for anything. “Since you’re under my command.”

He wasn’t expecting Scotty to laugh. “About that.”

Jim paused. “Excuse me?” Even as he said that, he was staring at the signature at the end of the message.

It was simple, non-descript really, and in any other occasion, Jim would’ve passed over it without thinking. Without another word, he slid to the second page—this page wasn’t related to Jim in any way, but it was a formal letter to Scotty.

“What—”

“I take it you’ve found it, then.”

“Scotty,” Jim said slowly, and it took all he had to try to be rational about this when his mind wasn’t, “why are you reporting from the Bradbury?”

Scotty opened his mouth and then closed it. “I just--” He shook his head. “Sorry, Jim.” He hesitated. “If it’s any consolation, her new Captain really isn’t that bad. Shame what happened to Abbott, though.”

“Switched payrolls on me?” Jim joked, but his stomach sank, and all he could think was what. He knew exactly where he’d heard the name of the ship before and her Captain. Spock had been meant as the new first officer there, and Jim had all but forgotten in the wake of their last mission together. Or what had been their last mission before Jim had summarily kicked the bucket.

“Make sure you read the fine print too, Jim,” Scotty reminded him rather kindly, and considering he didn’t usually pander, it meant there was a lot more going on here than was implied. The tippy-toeing and hand-holding Jim could do without. “The part about--”

“--answering to Admiral Barnett’s authority?” Jim’s mind spun. Barnett had been in charge of the Academic board back at the Academy, and definitely hadn’t been on a starship command in the years since he’d been promoted. “We’re moving to that now? I didn’t think he liked politics.”

“Man wasn’t pleased,” Scotty hedged. “Mind you, you think that’s why he sent me?”

“Probably.” Jim could hardly hear himself. “So that’s it? You’re out?”

“Ship’s not leaving anytime soon, but I’ll need to make rounds. Along with some other things.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

Because Jim was pretty sure that this could’ve been dropped in his lap more tactfully, he could only assume that Scotty hadn’t been planning on telling him in the first place. At this point, there was no way to get him back unless his Captain agreed to switch, and even then procedure—procedure was a bitch. How the hell did he-?

Scotty’s voice was low. “Jim, I can’t say no. Barnett is an Admiral. Engineer here. Only ranked so high.”

“They can’t do that,” Jim exclaimed. The implication that Scotty had been reassigned against his will made Jim’s blood boil. Understanding the limited availability of genius engineers, this was ridiculous no matter how you looked at it.

Scotty laughed nervously. “Also, I might not have…registered myself back in your roster? You did kick me off the ship. Didn’t really have the time to reinstate myself, so they.” He shrugged. “Went on with it.”

So it was Jim’s fault now? No, that wasn’t it. Jim could accept that it was his fault, and he should never have tried it. Everything else had come out for the better of it, really, but. But this?

“No,” Jim said, voice shaking, “That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking why it took so long for you to tell me? Were you ever planning on telling me?” Was it because Jim had been a really shitty Captain? Was it because Scotty was tired of Jim fucking up the Enterprise? Was it because-? “Scotty. Goddammit, Scotty!”

Jim was out of the bed and half-way to the door when Scotty turned around and said, “I’m authorized to use a phaser on you.” They locked eyes. “As necessary.”

Jim licked his lips, eyes flickering between Scotty and the phaser.

There were probably five ways Jim could disarm him, but he was sure between Scotty, who was still on active duty, and Jim, who had been confined into hospital quarters for the weeks come to pass—it was easy to figure out who would win. It was all Jim could do not to challenge that.

“Are you threatening me, Scotty?” he asked, heart pounding in his ears.

It was a question of whether or not Scotty was going to pull the trigger just to show him he was serious about all of this, just because it was his job to make sure Jim knew what the rules were. Jim almost thought he was prepared to do it until a sad half-smile appeared on Scotty’s face, and the phaser disappeared back under a jacket.

“Couldnae do it, really,” Scotty admitted heavily. “Take care, Jim.”

The door slid shut.

\--

The last time Jim had been arrested, he’d been sixteen and without a motorcycle license. Then again, he’d lived in the backwater of Iowa, in a little town that just so happened to be home to a big enough Memorial shipyard that there were too many people for a too little place. Nobody really cared past the cadets and whatever shit they got into on an orientation night. Moody suckers liked to get wasted and then play card games during the evening, and by morning they were gone. Des Moines hadn’t been much better for full day entertainment; too many cops trying for a chunk of something else, but Iowa City was the closest big city, and as long as you were careful, you could do anything you wanted. That had been the world according to Jim, smarting after he’d been shoved into a containment cell after he’d run his mouth about the cop’s mother. While being arrested for treason was something else, Jim didn’t really think it was that much different.

The last time Jim had been fucked over, though, that’d been another story. People didn’t forget, but Jim learned lessons and then dropped them. Nothing more than cargo, really.

The medical AMA discharge form sat on his PADD blinking up and compelling him. Jim was tempted. Instead, he switched over to another document, past the arrest order that also detailed one extra condition to add to his stay here.

“‘Jurisdiction of a court-martial does not depend on where the offense was committed; it depends solely on the status of the accused,’” he read aloud. The section it pointed to, Solorio v. United States, referred to the part where Solorio was still active and on duty, never mind that he’d transferred before they realized exactly what he’d done (sexual assault, but that wasn’t what Jim has in common with him). All in all, it just confirmed and cemented what they were saying: now that you are alive, we’re court-martialing you. It was in the courts of, hey, you couldn’t try a dead man, but maybe you could try a dead man walking.

And Jim wasn’t laughing.

\--

The door was open. Jim didn’t know why the hell the door was open, but it wasn’t locked, and there was no one in the halls. If this was a trick, it was pretty obvious. At the same time, Jim couldn’t figure out why someone would even bother leaving the door open for him. Locked with a card key that could only be opened twice by visitors, or however times needed by the medical specialists that worked in the area, Jim’s private room was set a ways back from the more populated areas of the hospital. It was meant for ambassadors, those who wanted a place away from rowdy children (whom, frankly, Jim got along great with, so that sucked), and larger than your average hospital room. It probably helped that it was on a higher floor too, with a view of the city, overlooking the skyline and the shuttle tubes that ran around the city over the roads and sidewalks below.

Jim hated the city. He’d lived in a town his entire childhood and a half, left everything for three years at the Academy and found a bustling nightlife more convoluted than the one back in Riverside. He’d never really knew what it was like to sleep soundly until he’d returned to his quarters the first night after taking off. To wake up to the stars. It sounded cliché in his head, but Jim knew more than anything he was meant for up there, not here. The lull of the starship was more comfort to him than in this distilled place, and the sooner he could leave, the sooner—

He stopped.

Yeah, he was going to be leaving. When he was dead. If he stayed longer, that was.

Jim was no stranger to being scared for his life. Probably the first time he’d looked at the possibility of dying and his brain had known exactly that if he didn’t jump then, he’d never survive to punch Sam in the face. It’d been a dumbass thing to keep to even now long after he’d grown up. And less than a month ago, he’d actually been dying.

Death was cold. Stiffening limbs and a muted heartbeat that eventually stopped. He had no doubt the death penalty was colder, and he had no doubts either what he’d heard had happened while he was dead.

Statistics had always come easy to him. Figuring out probability was a snap of his fingers. He knew the likelihood of whether or not a starship could handle what he was giving her, just as he had the luck of the universe trying to challenge that every single time. Because it wasn’t about giving up, it was about believing in a no-win scenario and sticking with it. This though, was beyond calculation.

“Well, fuck,” Jim said. He was out of the room before he knew it, arrest monitor bumping uncomfortably against his ankle. While he hadn’t gone in through a jail term, in general Starfleet couldn’t expend every available man to guard him, so this was the next best thing, with an officer coming in to check on him every so often. Especially with his history.

A monitoring system had been attached to the edge of his sickbed to act as a modem. And, correctly assuming he wasn’t just locked into his room permanently 24/7, it meant he was free to walk for the one hundred yards. Despite all their advancements in technology, this one didn’t stop being any bulkier than Jim had remembered seeing in his class PADDS. He felt like a common criminal, ironically enough.

He wasn’t banned from traveling around the area—just needed check-ins from time to time.

Jim almost stopped as soon as he spotted the passing sickbed of a new patient in the area. He slipped behind the wall and waited until the accompanying nurse passed. It was instinctive, even though he really wasn’t doing anything wrong.

At least, Jim was gratified to know, the numbered of cameras lessened as he passed through hallways. They did have blind spots, which was a relief considering Jim hadn’t thought to replicate some sort of spray or steal it from a nursing supply closet. Good idea, actually, but he didn’t have the security keys for it, and hacking it was probably a bit too conspicuous and dangerous considering that they would probably be holding more than a few doses of painkiller hypos in there. Not that he was planning on breaking out: his ankle monitor came with a GPS. If he cut the fiber optic cable, an alarm would sound; if he jammed any signal, it would send another one to an alarm.

At the same time, though they were fewer in number, the cameras covered a longer range—long hallways, with absolutely nothing to hide behind. If he didn’t hide in a room or use a door to block the way, they’d probably be able to find him on the security tape later, especially since his face was too recognizable.

Maybe it was a telling sign that Jim instinctively went to look for ways out.

Shit. Was this place a maze? Jim was starting to think it’d been built this way on purpose. Where was a map when you needed one?

“Map, map, map—oh, here we go.”

Closest exit was the front, but the most cameras were directed to the front. It was better to tail back and find some other exit, just in case anything did happen. Back to the map.

It was easier to pass through the hallways this time. He didn’t meet anyone on his way, and for the occasional doctor he saw, they passed by as though they hadn’t seen him. Bless doctor-patient confidentiality.

He just rounded the corner when he heard it.

“—how to tell Jim?”

Jim froze. That was Bones’s voice.

“It would be irrelevant to tell him.” Spock too? Jim slid with his back to the wall and casually checked his invisible pockets, and then the pamphlets on a bulletin board across from the hallways. “We can only continue as we must.”

“How long?” No answer. “Dammit, Spock, talk to me.”

“There is nothing to talk about, Doctor.”

Jim strained to hear more, but it was faint, like they were walking away. Before he could follow them, he was stopped by a solid weight on his shoulder. Instinct caused him to whirl around and flip that hand right off—he was cut off abruptly when his arm twisted behind his back. Jim would’ve flung his head back and broken someone’s nose if they hadn’t put their foot into the arch of his own, and he hadn’t heard, “Commander.”

Oh, geez.

Jim peeked over his shoulder just as he was summarily shoved into the wall, and couldn’t help the laugh that was startled out of his throat.

“Hey, Cupcake,” he said breezily, smarting from the roughness. He winced. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“You realize this was really a dumb move,” Cupcake said sympathetically.

“What?” Jim asked, before realizing. He hadn’t even noticed he’d ended up walking that far. A hundred yards really wasn’t that far after all. “A man can’t get some exercise now and then?”

“You can’t afford this right now.”

“Yeah?” he said, turning his face into the wall and thinking. “Yeah, guess so.”

\--

Uhura eventually came to visit, which had been the whole point of the note, but she didn’t come alone. She had Sulu and Chekov with her, and if Jim didn’t think something was already up, he would’ve figured something by now. They were in dress uniform, and Jim wasn’t kidding himself for a moment when he thought they were doing it as a farewell to their former Captain.

 “I might as well tell you,” she said, cutting to the chase like she always did. “All three of us are being reassigned.”

 Jim looked at Sulu who didn’t look at him.

 “You’ll see me, huh?”

 “I’m not a diplomat,” Sulu said wryly, but when he finally met Jim’s eye, it was with a steadiness that Jim had really only seen in people who were fit for their command. “Sorry, Commander.”

 “We,” Chekov began hesitantly, “We did not want to tell you about our reassignments on top of everything.”

 It was a decent move, considering how much Jim had overreacted when they’d deliberately kept the details from him on his own court martial.

 “Reassignment,” Jim repeated slowly. Chekov’s lips thinned.

 “Reassignment,” Uhura confirmed.

 Jim’s eyes shot from his navigator. “You’re serious.”

 She met it back coolly. “Mmhmm.”

 “What do you mean by _reassignment?_ ” Scotty was one thing. This was-?

 Uhura shifted her weight to one hip to the other, and raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that dictionaries don’t seem to be doing the job for you anymore.”

 “ _Nyota._ ”

 It did the trick. Her eyes flashed, her mirthful smile vanished without a trace, and Jim thought, _Good._ This wasn’t a joke.

 “Reassignment,” she said in short, clipped tones. “I’m being shipped off to the Naviga. New orders and all. Sulu’s getting the Reliant. Chekov’s going with him.”

 Uhura was going to be moved to the Naviga as a communications officer. If Sulu was getting the Reliant, he was being promoted to get captaincy, or he would be soon enough. And Jim had praised on record enough times their teamwork skills to know that Chekov was coming with Sulu because it needed to balance at least one command team out.

 It didn’t explain anything, but Bones and Spock’s hushed conversation suddenly made a whole world of fucking sense.

 “Why?”

 “I signed up for military service, and I have eight years,” she snapped. “Why else do you think?”

 “I--”

 “There is, minimum, eight years,” Chekov offered hesitantly by explanation. “No matter how long term we are signed for. The rest go to reserve duty to fulfill the obligation made to the Starfleet.”

 Jim couldn’t think straight asides from the fact. “Wow. Just. Wow.” It wasn’t the eight years; he’d been aware of it too—and it’d been one of the reasons he’d never wanted to sign his life up to a military organization. And in those eight years, sure, a lot changed. But this wasn’t even two years, and that stung hard.

 He felt angry, hands clenching at his sides, because he couldn’t fathom how the hell they’d decided this or why they would’ve even tried. The fact that Bones and Spock were hiding it from him, the fact that Scotty hadn’t even been planning on telling him in the first place—he should’ve been grateful that the three in front of him were telling him—but really?

 “Commander?” Chekov asked. “Are--”

 “This is great, really,” Jim said louder. “Instead of mourning for me for the last two weeks,” Chekov flinched, “ _this_ is what you guys do?” Maybe it was a mercy on their part to not drop it on him the moment he woke up, but Jim didn’t _care_ about mercy, because they still did it behind his back.

 Only Uhura was looking at him. Sulu was doing something with his face in between apology and the amazing way he’d taken to the Captain’s chair a while back. Chekov was looking like Jim was a stranger—god, he felt like he’d failed in some sort of role-model test now, which—fuck that. It’d never been in his job description, and Jim never knew what the hell he was doing, so why the hell would he know now? Just. It wasn’t even--Jim didn’t have much to him especially when it came to following protocol, but he knew at least enough to know what they did to get those reassignments.

 And when. Probably while Jim was still thawing out from the cyrogenics.

 “Are you _kidding me?_ Even if I’m _dead_ ,” Jim was getting louder, he was practically shouting. “I’m still your Captain!” It was anger and hurt mixed up with something that couldn’t even understand why they’d just leapt at it. Reassignments took fifteen days to go through. Barely even a week or maybe less than one, and they’d decided to go for it. Hadn’t they just, for one second, cared that he was dead? Hadn’t he mattered to them as much as they mattered to him?

 Sulu closed his eyes and breathed. “We had no other choice,” he said, and his voice was firm. “Starfleet Command wanted us going somewhere, and they didn’t want to repair the Enterprise. You saw the starship,” he added, “You saw the Vengeance. There’s a whole line of them already in progress. Rumours, anyway.”

 “Shouldn’t you,” Jim shook his head, trembling with anger, because he couldn’t think about whatever Marcus had been planning on top of the fact that his crew had willingly _jumped_ ship. “I don’t know, wait for my command or some shit--”

 “You were dead,” Uhura said, her tone icy, finally pissed off. “What do you think we were supposed to do?”

 “I was comatose,” Jim returned. “You could’ve—”

 “Dead when the orders set in,” she set, crashing through his technicality with finesse. “Dead according to Admiralty. You were _dead._ Doctor McCoy said he couldn’t guarantee anything, and you weren’t responding to external stimuli in the coma. What else do you think we were supposed to do, just wait around for you to blink? We didn’t have all the time in the world. Understand that we were _this_ close to pulling your entitled plug. Shit isn’t hard.”  
  
Jim swallowed hard. He didn’t know who he was more disappointed in, himself for thinking that they—that there was something here with this group of people he’d gone over missions with and had joked around with and had nearly died with—that there was something more than just a command crew. Maybe a family. An actual family.

“I get it,” he said, voice tight.

 “Do you?”

 “Lieutenant, don’t pull that with me.”

 “Well, _Commander_ , I don’t think shouting the chain of command at us after the fact is going to solve anything. Permission to speak freely,” she continued, not waiting for his permission, “I’m not entitled to be polite and neither do you. But there’s something called dignity and self-respect. Not everything is about you.”

 “That’s not my point.”

 She spread her hands. “Then you’ll have to tell us.”

 Jim inhaled. Then exhaled. “With the admirals dead, and _Pike_ dead,” he said, willing his voice to be as completely neutral as possible, “And shit, I get the fact that you were busy, but even--even though you were _so busy_ , you had the time to take your reassignments to the higher ups.” He knew the procedure. He knew the fucking--god, they must’ve appealed to Spock or Bones, and just--Jim couldn’t. That everyone was going behind his back to leave as soon as it was clear Jim was dead.

 Uhura looked angry. But then she let out a breath of shaky air, and shook her head, looking tired. They were all tired. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s exactly it.”

 Suddenly all the anger just...just left him. Jim couldn’t breathe.

 Uhura, for her credit, knew exactly what he wanted to say from how she watched him warily; she was the one with the most level head on her shoulders, and Jim couldn’t--she was practically the collective voice. Studying intonation and body language was more than needed to survive in her field, but she had it down to an art, and there wasn’t anyone else Jim knew who knew exactly enough to understand him.

 Sulu on the other hand looked like he was taking this in, and Chekov had decided that his PADD was a better place to look at instead of this conversation.

 “I’m sorry. Jim,” she said, and the fact that she was speaking to him as more than his subordinate, as a friend hurt. Uhura didn’t pull punches, but she was as straightforward as she needed to be. “I really am sorry.”

 He couldn’t look at her in the face, mostly because if anyone was better at breaking news like this, it was Uhura.

 “Wow.” He sat back, shaking. “Wow. Thanks.” It came out bitter, which was the exact opposite of how he wanted to feel.

 “No,” Uhura said, “That’s not it.” The tone of her voice caused Jim to look up. She looked frustrated with him. “I don’t pretend to speak for everyone, but it wasn’t easy for any of us. Look, okay? I get it. I understand, as much as I can. It’s shit. The fact that we’re all going our own ways? Wow, that’s kind of shit too. But here, what I’m seeing right now from you? I’m not sure you get it.”

 “Yeah,” Jim sneered. “I’m getting it.”

 “ _Listen,_ there’s nothing you can do.” Her voice was betraying her now, anger at his attitude. A small part of Jim couldn’t help but think, _good._ “There’s something going on in your head that makes you think you can, but you can’t.” Petty vindication vanished.

 It was that old saying that Jim had always hated. He’d never been good with it. And he’d never been good at being unselfish. “I’m a Kirk,” he heard himself say. “I will use my own last name for my own gain if I fucking have to.”

 And he knew he would.

 “You can try,” Uhura said, “You can make it an order. You can do anything you want to do under the sun, but you know what? Not everyone wants to come back.”

 “What?”

 “Maybe people don’t want to be ordered around and told where to go. Maybe people actually want a chance to start new.”

 JIm was going through one word answers, but he couldn’t even think. “ _Why?_ ”

 “What do you mean, why?” She looked positively insulted that Jim didn’t even know. Ashamed. “Roughly fifty percent of personnel didn’t return or were injured enough to mandate leave. During missions, specifically away missions, roughly sixty percent of officers don’t return. Do you know what they say about—” She stopped.

 Jim felt sick. “What do they say?” he asked.

 She sucked in some air, and pressed her lips into a thin line. Recognition that’d she’d gone a little bit too far in her eyes. “I don’t think--”

 “What do they say?” he repeated. “Please.”

 For a moment, Uhura was silent.

 “People have died under your command.” Her voice was hard, tone biting. “People with friends and families, people who gave their lives for _you_.” And suddenly she looked furious, channeling something or just exploding from all the pressure. “You’ve never once considered how reckless you are on missions. Or how many more causalities than necessary that happen because you _just have to do things differently._ ”

 It wasn’t a direct answer to his question, but Jim got the point.

 “And you?” he asked. “What do you really think?”

 She slowed down, and met his gaze evenly. “You were dead. My options were limited. I dare you to tell me you could’ve found something better.”

 “Right. ‘Limited.”

 “Don’t mock me.” It was quiet. “There’s no other option. I’m most secure where I’m reassigned.” Reassigned. “Don’t give me that look, I don’t need this right now. I didn’t come here for you to judge me, and neither did these two.” On top of everything, Uhura seemed like she wanted to say something more, hand rising up as if to maybe gesture or point to something, before it dropped back to her side. She shook her head, and swallowed hard. “Don’t. I’m out. I really don’t have to stand here and deal with you. Or want.”

 “Commander,” Chekov said quietly, as they watched her go. “I would very much like to keep serving with you, but it--”

 “--isn’t going to happen,” Jim finished. He sighed. He felt exhausted. “I know.”

 “I am sorry,” Chekov continued very kindly. He was a good kid. Jim felt like shit disappointing him, but a part of him held tight vengefully to his own right to be disappointed.

 It was then that it hit Jim. Maybe not all of his crew wanted it as much as he did. Maybe he really was the only one who wanted to stay together.

 “I’m sorry that it had to happen like this,” Sulu said quietly. He looked like he wanted to say more.

 No, Jim wanted to answer, not as sorry as I am.

 Instead, he just nodded, and his room was empty once again.

 --

 It was ironic that they thought he was going to be the death of them. From the moment Pike had found him in the shipyard bar, Jim had already hashed an identity as a troublemaker. He’d been fine with that, and the idea that he could play with his life. The Corvette over the edge had been the catalyst; the alcohol his mom kept in the cabinets under the sink had been rich. At one point, he’d decided that fuck it, he was going to try anything and nobody could stop him. Fuck Sam, he’d said. Fuck his mom. Fuck George Fucking Kirk. Everyone thought he’d have been the death of himself, and Jim had thought so too. What scared him senseless was that he hadn’t even realized he’d be dragging down everyone with him until Admiral Marcus—the last thing he ever wanted.

 And Pike, the only person who just--god. Jim was going to be his second in command. It hurt, every time he thought about it, because there were all these could’ves and would’ves and should’ves, and it made him angry and frustrated. He was actually going to learn and Pike was actually going to--Jim was actually going to have been allowed to make mistakes, learn slowly, learn as he should’ve, and Pike was going to have been watching, and there was going to be just--and Jim was going to have had his rank _deserved_ , and this was the way it was supposed to have been and just. All those things that wouldn’t happen now, and Jim never being able to prove to Pike that he was worthy of that second chance. He couldn’t imagine how much Pike had had to risk; he’d never thought about it. And now it was really too over and too late. Pike died because of him and Jim was so done with people dying.

 This was why he never wanted to join Starfleet. This was why he’d laughed all those years with Sam about how only morons would’ve joined. He hadn’t known then that just the needs of the many outweighed the needs of himself. He had to stop being so goddamned selfish so that everyone that actually mattered could have a chance at being happy and danger free. Because if you were with him, you were guaranteed to die, which was shit and the fulfillment of everything they were saying he’d be while he was growing up.

 Comas required life support, Jim knew that as well as anyone. Once, he’d been thirteen. He’d woken up in an ICU, attached to ventilator, and with a tube in his windpipe, and scared out of his mind. When you woke up, suddenly the world was too much. They’d done away with the malnutrition with regular feedings, drugged him because he’d been prone to fevers during the whole thing and hadn’t responded well to the antibiotics they’d had no choice to use, and they’d been on another round of preventing skin breakdown when he’d just _returned_. Everything of real life, reality, came rushing back in a stream, and he’d jerked, and breathed on his own like he hadn’t been for the longest time, and it’d been claustrophobic. His recent experience thirteen years later hadn’t changed since then.

 And he knew too, what it was like to see someone in a coma and a heart monitor screen just stop. Maybe not all of the crew had been lucky enough to die aboard a starship, but he knew too what it was like just to see someone go out or gone, and knowing the truth at both ends was paralyzing. That he’d never have really ever been able to wake up again—that they were all prepared to do that. It frightened him that it really didn’t matter. They’d been prepared to do away with him, and then move on, because even if he’d died, they’d still get reassigned. No truth hit harder than that.

It was so ironic that being anything except selfish left him so bitter. The one good thing that had ever happened to him, and he couldn’t have it, and that was why he was shoving his crew further and further away so that they were _happy_ to go. He felt like shit no matter where he put himself. Uhura had said her respects, but Jim knew exactly what people longed for when their entire lives were full of uncertainty and instability.

 Jim was more than a piece of work for wanting to take that away. He was a piece of crap.

 --

 If Jim thought he was angry, he was angrier when Bones came to find him. Not because he hadn’t seen him in a while (he didn’t remember when it started), but because Bones had the decency to unlock the room and tell him to come into his office. Like on top of being placed into under arrest and facing court-martial—where the death penalty was possible, very possible because it was _treason_ —Jim was tired of this routine by now.

 Sickbay took up an entire deck on its own: medical equipment, biobeds, space, offices, an ICU, surgery rooms, a medlab, supply rooms, and a morgue. In this hospital, Bones had been allocated a room with a nondescript door and an empty label, designed with minimalism in mind. A long table at the side, an office chair behind the desk, two chairs in the front, all in a square room with the walls as high as the ceiling lighting. A month of bare personalization lingering around its edges that spoke of an absent tenant, and a single box filled to the brim with file folders—things that hardly anyone used anymore, until it was something that required a finality to it.

 “I have to tell you something.”

 Jim snorted, feeling sick to his stomach even as Bones closed the door behind them both and gestured somewhere to one of the seats. “Yeah, I don’t want to hear it.” He didn’t need to hear it straight from Bones’s mouth that he was done with Jim’s emotional baggage and was shipping out tomorrow or something. “I know.”

 Bones’s head jerked around so fast Jim could almost have heard his heart stop. “What?”

 Jim was so tired of this refrain, and maybe he was angry. If he had pockets, he would’ve jammed his fingers into them. Instead, he put a hand on top of one of the file folders in the box, flipping it open to illegible scribbles. “Yeah, Bones, I know, okay? I _know_ what you and Spock were up to this entire time, so you can just drop the act.”

 “Goddammit man,” Bones looked like he was fighting between saying something and just shaking, “if you know then—”

 “Bones,” Jim said, shoulders tensing. “Drop it.”

 “No, Jim, I’m really sorry that I can’t,” Bones said, and his voice was hard enough Jim snatched his hand back, just in time to watch him slam the lid upon the box. “We need to talk about this.”

 No. No, no, no, Jim didn’t think he could handle this at all. He couldn’t look Bones in the eye. Connecting the dots was one thing; and the thing about believing and trusting in someone was another. And before he’d known anything, crew had begun to mean something more than people he worked with, people’s lives he was in charge with, every single being he sent out and every rank he was solely responsible for. Jim wanted to trust that it wasn’t the same this time round.

 Frustration bit through him. “I _know_. I get it. And I don’t blame you for getting out while it was still good.”

 Bones wasn’t smiling or laughing or apologizing. Instead, he stilled, staring at him. Jim hated when people looked at him and didn’t say anything. Thoughts were so easy to see most of the time when they were on Bones’s face, but Bones was so fucking sincere and crass and in your face all the time, and that always made him so hard to predict.

 “Jim,” Bones said, slowly. “What are you talking about?”

 Jim couldn’t _believe_ it. He was still trying to pull it off.

 Forcing his face taunt but failing, Jim stood up and shook his head, hands clenching open and closed into fists. Fury filled up his throat, and he swallowed it burning all the way down, eyes staring at anything in Bones’s office that wasn’t his face. “I’m talking about the fucking reassignment,” Jim grit out, fighting the urge to look up.

 Maybe it was okay with Uhura and Scotty and Chekov and Sulu—Jim didn’t know. Maybe it was just okay for them all because he hadn’t been much to them; just a Captain who was more of a friend, and maybe Jim wasn’t so good at knowing what to do, or the right thing, or what he was supposed to do. Maybe he hadn’t had time to learn what it was like, because maybe systemic everything made no sense to him. But that maybe was nothing compared to the maybe of Bones, because the fact that after everything, that it would mean nothing—fuck.

 Jim swallowed heavily, trying to keep his thoughts from bleeding into his voice. “The one where you and Spock didn’t know ‘how to tell Jim’.” God forbid, he couldn’t take this. He couldn’t say this and not know.

 “Jim, that--”

 “Yeah, _that_.” He looked up. He needed to know after all. He needed to hear it straight from Bones’s mouth. “Tell me why you’re doing this.”

 If there was one thing about Bones that never changed, it was the fact that he was impossible to read sometimes, but whenever he spoke, he always seemed to be in charge of himself. Jim admired it, but now all he could think as he stared up at him was that whatever bullshit Bones was going to throw at him, he didn’t want it, even if he needed to hear it.

 There was still space in between them. Bones took the step forward and lifted a hand angling slightly downwards as though settling a wild animal. As though he were afraid Jim might bolt or attack. “Jim,” he said firmly, voice low, and it always did catch Jim off guard how Bones could always look so concerned and angry at the same time. “I don’t know what you think you heard or how much you heard, but it’s not that.”

 “Then what is it?”

Hesitation.

“Bones,” Jim said. It felt like every word was being ripped out from between his clenched teeth. “What. The. Fuck. Is. It.”

He watched as Bones’s hand slid down, closing slowly into a fist before it lay down on the desk. Jim felt as though he were five seconds away from raising it and slamming it back down, and then yelling. It wouldn’t have been a surprise; Bones got angry enough, swearing up a storm, chewing people out, and when he did it, everyone knew something was wrong. But there was something even more wrong about this scenario: that Bones was slowly drawing it out, that his mouth remained a firm line of displeasure, and he looked like if he could have given anything to have avoided this, maybe he would’ve taken it.

It was the maybe that almost made Jim leave.

“My license,” Bones said finally, sighing. The tension deflated from his shoulders and he sank down onto the chair. “We were talking about my license and Spock’s...Spock’s trial.”

 Jim knew he should’ve continued on the line of interrogation, but--just— _what_ —? “You didn’t tell me you were losing your license.” It came out from his mouth like he’d just been punched in the gut.

 Bullshit. The fact that Bones had willingly kept this from him the moment he’d woken up was fucking _bullshit._ It wasn’t that Jim didn’t understand in some convoluted way, but Bones was a _doctor._ And to give it all up for Jim’s fucking ass who couldn’t bother to even to follow the rules, and that was why Pike was dead, that was why everyone on his ship was being reassigned, and that was why whatever was happening with Spock was staying so ridiculously wrapped up that Jim couldn’t—there was nothing.

 They’d expected him to just sit back and watch it all happen, even when it was too late.

 They did it on purpose, he realized. Because they knew he would react.

 “When were you planning on telling me? Because,” Jim said, and his voice was shaking, and this wasn’t—this was just like Scotty, and just like Uhura and Chekov and Sulu thinking it was great to shove his face in it—“if you were just expecting me to _be okay with it_ —”

 “Jim, I took a risk with that procedure.”

 “That ‘procedure’ was a fucking _blood transfusion_ , Bones!” It shouldn’t have done a goddamned thing. It shouldn’t have meant Bones was losing his license. What the fuck was the medical board going on about?! “What the fuck are they saying you’re losing it for? Does it mean that every fucking—”

 “ _Jim_ , shut up for two seconds and listen.” Bones wasn’t moving. He looked _tired_ , pushed into hard place between two rocks, and dammit, it wasn’t Jim putting him there, but it sure well felt like it. But Bones looked like he’d been expecting this too, and Jim really didn’t know how he felt about that—where his anger was supposed to be meant for, or who his frustration was supposed to be directed at.

 “No,” Jim said, “I’m not going to. You can’t—”

 “Drop it. What’s done is done.” There was a note of finality to it that made the hair on the back of Jim’s neck crawl.

 “We can get your license back,” Jim insisted. The words came out of his mouth before he’d ever even had a time to think about it. Usually it was easy—bullshit honed from years of fake diplomacy and underage bars and a bad line of credit; calculations based on whether or not the ship could take getting too close to the gravitational fields. Only Scotty ever really knew as well as he did how much she could take. But this was. Jim didn’t know how or why but it always felt like he was being stripped _raw_ , because. “Get it reinstated. Something, just something.”

 In all honesty he didn’t know what to expect from Bones. Bones was always pure, unadulterated emotion and things about being morally right and wrong. Bones knew what the fucking right thing to do was, or when Jim was being a miserable asshat who needed to sleep for more than two hours in a string of calculation theory over the course of a week. When it was Bones, it was never about Bones, and never about what Bones needed—it was all about how Jim was going to run Bones to an early death, how Jim was going to burn himself out.

 What he wasn’t expecting was for Bones to slam his hands on the table, face livid. Jim flinched as he drew closer, Bones’s fury almost dangerous. “And what, Jim? Sure, I don’t give a rat’s ass about their opinion of me, but do you know what I _risked_?” He drew back. “Do you know how many patients other than _you_ are under my file?”

 “Bones—”

 “No, dammit, you listen. You listen, alright?” He forced himself to sigh, forced himself to breathe, visibly taking the effort to reel himself back in. “It was bound to happen. And I’m not blaming you for it, because, quite frankly, if this was the price to pay, then I’m paying it! If improper or unlawful conduct is all they’re charging me for—“

 “You can’t—”

 “This isn’t to protect me, Jim! Don’t you see? I have a history—”

 Jim didn’t want to see where they were coming from. Jim didn’t _want_ to see the fucking humanitarian aspect of this. He didn’t want to understand it. “What?” he demanded. “Are you going to say that they’re trying to ‘protect the patients’? They think just because of me, you’re going to—“

 “I have a history,” Bones repeated loudly, slowly, “of killing my patients.” Bones’s voice was stricken a mix of absolutely every emotion on the planet, and it carried over the interrupted jerky silence like an echo. Maybe this was the real reason Bones had been content to even go through with this, because now he looked like he’d actually had lost everything.

 Jim could hear his heart beating against his throat. He licked his lips, blood running cold. “No.”

 “Don’t you tell me ‘no’—”

 “Bones, don’t give me that shit—you’re getting your fucking _license revoked._ ” And that was not okay. Jim couldn’t see Bones anywhere that wasn’t in the sickbay complaining. Jim didn’t want to see Bones anywhere that was dishonored. Bones didn’t fucking deserve that. “Don’t just—”

 This was everything again. This was like the time Bones risked everything bringing him on board the Enterprise, this was Bones doing things for Jim that Jim didn’t even know how to ask about.

 “Sure, maybe I can’t show my face in any self-respecting medical facility ever again,” Bones was saying, “But you think I haven’t done this before?”

 And Jim suddenly couldn’t say anything.

 Something must’ve shown on his face, because Bones’s face just _stopped_. The angry furrow in his eyebrows smoothed, and his mouth closed. He looked like so much like a stranger now, like he hadn’t spent years yelling at Jim, years hazing over him with a tricorder and checking in on him. Like their lives hadn’t been somewhat mashed up together in a collision course and both of them were bleeding each other dry. He took a breath, and Jim did the same automatically, feeling it shudder in through his lungs and exhaustion pool over him.

 “Bones,” Jim started, but couldn’t say anymore. It was caught in his throat, and when he swallowed he felt heavy and more lost than he’d felt in a long time. Full understanding of how much Bones had sacrificed for him hit him, and Jim didn’t even know how to respond to it.

 His best friend stood before him and let him adjust to the proximity. “Come on, kid,” Bones said gruffly, quietly. He didn’t sound accusatory, and he didn’t sound angry anymore. There was a palpable sense of defeat in the air. A hand lay on Jim’s elbow. “Let’s get you a drink.”

 --

 Bones wouldn’t tell him what happened to Spock, which was complete bull. At the same time, he kept an eye on Jim until he was too tired to function, and then led him back into the room. ‘A drink’ had become just that; one placed gently into Jim’s hand, and Jim just angrily venting everything. By the time that flask had been single-handedly finished, Jim was drunk—and he’d forgotten what it was like to have your head spinning for a while and everything just stopping for hours. Bones had one of Jim’s arms over his shoulder and was talking to him as they walked back. Jim didn’t deserve him. Or whatever had been in that tin that was strong enough to make the world spin.

 He was giggling.

 “Long examination?” Cupcake asked, stepping by to let them both in.

 “He’s taking,” Bones said. Maybe it was because Jim was drunk, but Cupcake sniffed the air, and didn’t say a word. Just like a dog. Okay, so Bones had gotten permission from Jim’s arrest guard to take him to his office in the first place, but it didn’t look like Cupcake was willing to pull the rug under Jim’s feet. Jim had like three pairs of feet.

 That was kind of funny.

 He laughed.

 “Lights, twenty percent,” Bones ordered. The light adjusted accordingly.

 “Bones,” Jim said as he was pressed back onto his bed. He watched as Bones flicked on a smaller light to check both his eyes, and said, “Did you know? Sp…Spock can probably change the lights using his _mind_.” Spock would. Spock could. He would probably raise both eyebrows, and then lower then and then the lights would dim. Jim bet Spock had programmed the lights in his quarters to do specifically that. It actually was a good idea. Jim should do it too.

 Bones ignored him. “Y’all right there, Jim? Wasn’t too strong for you?”

 “I’m all here,” Jim said cheerily. He patted the side of Bones’s face as soberly as he could, which was hard when he misjudged the distance and kept hitting through the second one before he reached the third Bones. “Except when I was dead.”

 He didn’t get an answer, but that was okay. Jim watched in half-lidded, pleased fascination as Bones took out his tricorder. It always made Jim happy when Bones cared. And Bones always cared.

 Thinking back to Spock—to the last conversation Jim had really had with Spock before any of this had happened. Maybe there had been a hint, Jim thought. Maybe Spock was trying to tell him something, but Jim had been acting like nothing was wrong, and Spock hadn’t wanted to be the one to break it to him.

 There was a contradiction somewhere. Definitely had been. Spock had lied, hadn’t he?

 “Awfully quiet there, Jim. You thinking about something?”

 Everything split between several images, and Bones’s words sounded like they were coming in through a funnel.

 “Spock said the damage to the Enterprise was minor.” He tried to regroup his thoughts, but everything was clustered in between memories he hadn’t thought twice about before that he was thinking five times more right now. “And. Sulu said they weren’t gonna. Gonna.”

 Shit, what had Sulu said?

 Bones paused, and kept going. Jim was happy to watch him keep doing his doctor thing-things for the while, but what he really wanted was Bones to look at him. He wasn’t.

 Oh yeah, now Jim remembered. “The Enterprise.”

 “Mm.”

 “Hey, Bones? Bones. Bones. Bones, are you listening? You’re not ignoring me, right?”

 “I’m listening.”

 Oh, that was good. Jim liked it when people were listening. “Is that true? Are. Are they going to make a second Vengeance? No more Enterprise?”

 “I know only as much as you do, kid.” He took out a hypo and put it carefully on the side of Jim’s neck. Jim was too zoned out to feel much.

 “But the Enterprise,” Jim insisted. “Don’t you want the Enterprise too?”

  _“…and they didn’t want to repair the Enterprise.”_

“I’ll admit it’s grown on me.”

 “She,” Jim said crossly. “You call her she. She’s a Lady, Bones, you wanna treat her like one.”

 “Right. She.” Good. Jim gave one approving nod and sank back further in his pillows, satisfied.

 “I like the Enterprise,” Jim informed him. “I like, no, no, that’s wrong, I love her a lot.”

 “Yeah. I know you do.”

 “I was,” Jim said. He stared past Bones’s shoulder. It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t going to be repaired anymore, she was going to be sent to a shipyard and decommissioned, and her parts would be scattered or recycled. Like the Corvette, once. “I thought. And I was pretty sure you all did too?”

 Bless Bones. He knew what Jim was talking about. “It’s not that easy, Jim—dammit, stay still. Don’t pull being okay on me tonight. I know you aren’t.”

 “I just want,” Jim said, stumbling over the words in his mind. Dammit. “I just want something. Sam died, did you know? My brother. He was on the Farragut. Science officer.”

 Bones was quiet. “I’m sorry.”

 “So am I,” Jim said. “Sam was an asshole.”

 Bones checked his blood pressure.

 “Sam was a big asshole,” Jim repeated, because maybe Bones hadn’t heard. And maybe Jim hadn’t gotten with the program, because that was why he needed to repeat it. “Sam was a big stinking asshole, and I didn’t even know he was in Starfleet, but he must’ve seen me, Bones. He must’ve.” Because Jim had done a lot of things. Everyone knew his name. There wasn’t anyone who didn’t, and it was Sam’s decision not to say anything or come to the front. Jim hated it, because it wasn’t fair, and what the hell was Jim supposed to do anyway?

 “It’s a big campus,” Bones said. “He could’ve been assigned to a ship and off-planet those three years.”

 “I checked,” Jim said. “He was studying science. Biology. And I’ve been down to Biology, Bones. I never saw him. I know why. I have a shitty family, and we don’t know how to communicate. My mom didn’t visit at all, you know? This whole time I’ve been in here. Like, you guys all came, right? There are logs. Or she could’ve sent a comm. She used to…visit.” Jim nodded. “She used to do that. And mom stuff. But she didn’t do mom stuff.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “I have _eyes_ , Bones,” he said. “That’s why mom was never home. She was nice, when I was younger. She liked me when I was younger. But I look like my dad. And my dad’s dead so I can be alive, and my mom hates that because she wants my dad back, and Sam hates that because he wanted a dad and not a brother—”

 “Jim.”

 “I wish I could talk to her,” Jim said. “Because it’s fucking ridiculous that the last time we talked, she thought it was okay to just say Congrats, Sam’s Dead and walk off. Fuck you, Mom, that’s not what I fucking need, you only talking to me at a promotion and you telling me that Sam was in Starfleet this whole time and you _knew about it_ and you _didn’t tell me_.” His voice cracked worse. “It was fun when I was younger. She taught me how to drive. I know my engines because she taught me the fundamentals when I was five, and she used to think it was funny that I knew how to do math before I knew how to read and at first reading was all these jumbled letters and math made more sense, but then she used to play games with me and then it became easier, and Sam called me a nerd and I called him a dork and she used to comm home every night so we could still eat together, Sam and I would always fight but it was the _fun_ fighting, y’know, but then I grew up, and _Sam left_ , and—”

 “ _Jim._ ” Bones placed a firm hand on his arm. “Breathe. You’re hyperventilating. Inhale. Exhale. Follow me. Inhale. Exhale.”

 Jim followed it, but it felt like he was moving faster than Bones was, and it felt like forever until his breaths came slow and deep instead of shallow and uneven.

 “Jim?”

 “I’m so tired,” Jim said, out of breath and out of mind. He wanted to lie down and asleep; lying down was already done, but sleeping—something was stopping him. Everything was stopping him. “Sam’s dead, and you all are going away, and you’re going to lose your license, and I don’t know what’s happening to Spock.”

 “Spock’s going through a tough time.”

 “Yeah? Where is he? How come he can’t tell me to my face?”

 “I can’t say.”

 Jim frowned. Did Spock ask Bones not to tell? “Spock would know what to do,” he said, staring up at Bones whose face looked tighter and tighter. “He’d tell me I’m illogical.”

 A snort. “Hate to break it to you, but you _are_ illogical. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what makes you human.”

 “So if I stop being illogical, what would that make me?”

 Bones sighed. “Go to sleep, kid,” He said.

 “I can’t.”

 “Give it a shot,” Bones said, patting his arm. His hand stayed there, soaking in warmth, unsure steadiness. Jim almost leaned into it. “Or that’ll make two of us.”

 --


	2. Chapter 2

“ _Recording inquiry. Matter. Commander Kirk, James T. of Starfleet. Subject to military law, subject to trial by military tribunals. Article 106: Treason. Article 81: Conspiracy. Article 104: Aiding the enemy. Article 95: Breach of arrest and escape. Article 110: Improper hazarding of vessel.”_

“Well, quite frankly,” said Barnett. “I’m surprised you even made it this far.”

 “Admiral.” It wasn’t like Jim’s record was the shiniest of two turds, but it wasn’t his court to play. Not here.

 The inquiry. This was the same as the tribunal Marcus had been in charge of on the grounds of Jim being unworthy captaincy, he realized. Instead of him not being present in court this time, he was without prosecutor or anyone who existed outside the court. Signs were pointing already at the general court martial, and they hadn’t even started.

 Jim glanced around at the ranks. There were five Admirals sitting before him, and a Captain sitting beside him that Jim recognized by stripes but not face. A court of inquiry had at least three commission officers, more if needed. He was surprised to see Barnett. Usually any kind of investigations was referred to by a commander—if Barnett hadn’t been the accuser—but that was Marcus. And Marcus was much higher-ranked.

 What was going on?

 “I’ve heard you have a very big list of punitive offenses that are not limited to the ones that you are charged against. Do you deny this?”

 “I won’t know what I’m denying if they’re not being listed, Admiral.” It wasn’t a lie to say that none of them were going to like him at any point in time. He might as well put it all out on the table.

 “Clerk, list past punitive offenses for Commander Kirk,” Admiral Barnett paused, “when he was Captain.”

 “ _Starfleet commissioned officer Commander Kirk, James T. Punitive offences on record in rank of  Captain. Article 88: Contempt towards officials. Article 133: Conduct unbecoming of an officer and gentleman. Article 90: Willfully disobeying superior commissioned officer. Article 92: Failure to obey order or regulation. Article 107: False official statements. Article 110: Improper hazarding of vessel.”_

 With each additional offense, Jim winced. He would have been deaf and blind not to have noticed exactly what Barnett was giving him, but it still wasn’t going to make his record any less spotless. What did he want? What did he stand to gain or lose? Even if Jim was now under his authority, he couldn’t be sure exactly why Barnett was heading this in the first place, and he wasn’t deaf enough to know that one of the charges had been exactly one of the ones that had almost turned him back to a cadet.

 “This is an inquiry,” Barnett said, looking down at his PADD, “To determine whether or not there should be a general court-martial convened against Commander Kirk on aforementioned charges of treason, conspiracy, aiding the enemy, and breach of arrest and escape. The past punitive offenses may or may not be referred to in judge of your character. I act as the investigating officer, and will preside over the court. I call Captain Garrovick, who has been the military attorney for many an officer, as counsel to the court. Due to circumstances in which we were unable to procure for you a defense counsel, you will, as the accused, have the right, through him, to be present, to be represented, to cross-examine witnesses, and to introduce evidence. Have you understood?”

 Jim’s eyes flickered over Garrovick and narrowed.  “Ready.”

 “Kirk, on the record, you unlawfully exited Federation space to Klingon territory, specifically the homeworld of the Klingon Empire, Qu’noS. Is this correct?”

 “Yes, Admiral.”

 “You took with you the full crew of the Enterprise, and what I read here, an additional seventy-two advanced long-range torpedoes to your cargo.” He looked up from the PADD. “Why seventy-two?

 “ _Ship nomenclature. Specify._ ”

 “United Starship Enterprise. NCC-1701. I was sent by Admiral Marcus to kill the terrorist ex-Commander John Harrison and was provided with seventy-two photon torpedoes. It was a covert operation.”

 “Seventy-two to kill one man?”

 “With due respect, Admiral. That one man singlehandedly killed almost all of the senior officers of Starfleet command.” It felt disgusting to be defending Marcus, but it didn’t look like the tribunal cared much. “Admiral Marcus was convinced that a war was brewing.”

 “He was convinced.” Barnett studied him. “But what did you think?”

 Jim couldn’t even defend himself with bullshit. There was just no way—and lying under oath was a crime of perjury, another charge Jim had no desire to add to the list. “I was hell bent on revenge, sir,” he admitted. From the corner of his eye he could see the rest of the Admirals murmur amongst themselves. Barnett looked thoughtful. “I didn’t think until my first officer convinced me not to kill Harrison without trial.”

 “Some first officer,” someone at the other end of the board muttered under his breath. The computer picked it up, displaying it on the multi-dimensional holo screen. It felt like a brand of accusation, and the fact that Spock’s name was being pulled up, his rank, his—

 “Strike that from the record,” Barnett said, furrowing his eyebrows, before Jim could read any more. “I have a witness statement from Lieutenant Racine, saying you were arguing with your Chief Engineer and second officer, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, before the ship left spacedock. You removed him from his post, after.”

 Jim hesitated. A technicality. Scotty had resigned, but it was Jim who had cemented the order. “Yes,” he decided on. Lieutenant Racine? Had he been newly assigned for the mission? Jim didn’t remember anyone of that name, but then again, he’d been caught between getting revenge and doing, what he’d thought at the time, Starfleet a big favour. Since Racine wasn’t even here, Jim didn’t have the right to request a cross-examination.

 “Why?”

 “I didn’t agree with him. He refused to keep the torpedoes on board.”

 “That is not sufficient reasoning to remove an officer.” There was an implied, you should have convinced him. Jim was tired of this. “What were his concerns?”

 You should ask Scotty, Jim didn’t say. “There was shielding on the torpedoes, and Section 31 personnel refused to tell him what they were fueled by. He had concerns on firing unknown weaponry around the warp core.” Sabotaged, Jim didn’t say either.

 “Who replaced him?”

 “Ensign Pavel Chekov, Admiral.”

 “You put an Ensign on Chief Engineer?”

 Jim cursed silently. All of his command decisions were crashing down on him.

 “I needed a Chief Engineer, sir.” If he said anything about how Chekov was a good replacement—he’d done well for someone who had only been tagging around Scotty—they would pull Chekov’s age and rank into it. Jim was aware that even though the Enterprise was lauded as the ‘best of the best’, her crew was still young. There were people who thought the only people who could do their jobs well were those with experience and age; they weren’t wrong that it was a part of it, but it was an extremely arrogant way of looking at it.

 The admirals were again talking to themselves.

 “Commander,” one of them said, “I see here you were to be stripped of your rank and sent back to Academy.” He paused. “The ruling later was changed to you being demoted to Commander and to be placed under Admiral Pike’s supervision.”

 “Yes, Admiral.”

 To Jim’s surprise, he didn’t question further on that line and simply nodded.

 Barnett followed Jim’s gaze, but for the most part, continued. “Back to topic: There are no records of a covert operation.” He folded his hands together. “Do you know why that may be so?”

 “I would define covert for you, Admiral, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how to explain it.” If Jim even suggested a damn thing, one of court was going to leap down his throat.

 “The court is not here to listen to your sarcasm.” Admiral Archer, from the other side of the court. Jim remembered something vaguely pertaining to beagles, but there wasn’t much he could do under the spotlight. Shit, this light was bright. “Do you have an answer?”

 Did Jim have an answer? He had an answer. Marcus was an asshole, and that was a dumbass question, and so was the one before that.

 Garrovick leaned back in his seat. Jim turned his head towards him.

 “Commander Kirk, do you have an answer?”

 “No, Admiral,” Jim said finally, but Garrovick never looked back.

 “Tell us what occurred on Qu’noS,” Barnett asked. “How did you get there without sparking an incident?”

 Jim took that to mean that there hadn’t been any Klingons sharpening their bat’leh on the name of the Federation planets in revenge. “We used a confiscated vessel.”

 “ _Vessel nomenclature. Specify._ ”

 “K’normian trading ship. We didn’t find any identification.”

 “Why would you use transport? Were you not told to kill him?”

 “Would slamming seventy-two torpedoes at the source not spark war, sir? Or would it be an unprovoked genocide?”

 Barnett smiled for the first time in the tribunal, jaded. It was a clear indication that Jim’s angry bitterness was bleeding through every word, but at this point, Jim didn’t know if he could afford to care. “Your landing party?”

 “I had two security offers with me, along with my first officer and my communications officer.”

 “Speak their names for the record.”

 “Cup—” Jim had almost called him Cupcake. “Lieutenant Hendorff, G.; Lieutenant Tam, M.; Commander Spock; Lieutenant Uhura, N.”

 “Who was put on command?”

 “Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, Admiral.”

 “When you found Harrison, what did you do?”

 “I p—arrested him.”

 “And then what happened?”

 This was the make or break. Was Jim supposed to tell them about Khan? “I put him in the brig.”

 “After the time of your transmission, Admiral Marcus filed the charge of treason against you. Do you know why that is?”

 “I have one idea.”

 His abrupt response and lack of elaboration caused exactly three of the Admirals before him to look as though he’d decided to blow off rank and tell them off. The last two were staring heavily at him, as though his next words would be a huge reveal.

“Commander, it is your obligation to continue.”

“I would be accused of lying under oath. I’m not obligated to make a statement that I know will be used against me.” Out of the corner of his eye, Jim could see a smile on Garrovick’s face.

Barnett frowned. “You will answer before the tribunal.”

Clipped, he admitted, “He didn’t want me speaking to the prisoner.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

“What did you speak to him about?”

“I told him he was going to be tried before a court. He gave me coordinates.”

“Coordinates?”

Jim hesitated. There was no real secrecy, and nobody he’d talked to had said anything about keeping zip; just classified. “Will this information be made public?”

“It’ll be limited to the court and the computer records, which aren’t accessible to the general public domain or inquiries made from officers.”

Good enough as he was going to get. Jim just wanted people to know this, but he didn’t know how to play diplomacy—hadn’t suited him, he’d thought, and he didn’t expect he’d have needed it. He knew how to play games with psyches. He didn’t know how to play games when there were rules attached and he was a disadvantage, and win. “23-17-46-11. A shipyard.”

Someone tapped their PADD. It came up on screen, drawing a location around a beeping dot, an entire solar system, and then several more in the other residual galaxies. “Jupiter. There shouldn’t be any shipyard of any sort.”

“And Harrison gave you these coordinates?”

“Khan did, yes.”

Archer’s face was frozen.

Oh.

Jim’s eyes turned to him, cataloging the expressions every member of the tribunal. Either Archer knew something, or they all were bluffing.

Ask or don’t ask. Ask who Khan is.

“—id you conspire with him the death of Admiral Marcus in exchange for these coordinates?”

“I—what?”

“Did you, Commander Kirk, agree to sell out your superior officer in exchange?”

Jim couldn’t even—this was insinuating he’d had a hand in making sure Pike was dead. “ _No_.”

“Then why did Harrison give coordinates to an unmarked and unregistered shipyard?”

 “He wanted me to see something.”

 “I introduce this to the court: the warp core readings at the time in the Enterprise’s Engineering bay, extracted from the ship’s computer.” An image of the Enterprise replaced the previous Jupiter coordinates, her warpcore marked in red and to the side several lines leading to a vertical row of levels. “You were orbiting within Klingon territory from a damaged warp core. How on earth could you have verified the coordinates?”

 “Lieutenant Commander Scott, Admiral.”

 “Your Chief Engineer who you removed from post?”

 “Yes.”

 “You are charged with treason against the Federation,” Barnett said at last. “Do you—”

 “If there was a shipyard,” Archer interrupted. “How can we guarantee it? That your prisoner ‘told’ you about these coordinates is insufficient reasoning to believe it.”

 “You can send someone to look.” Was it so hard?

 “Unlikely,” Archer replied, sitting back. “This is both a waste of resources and time. I vote treason, have him in a general court-martial and be done with it. You willfully aided a terrorist. While he was in your custody, _Commander,_ you released him and killed your superior officer.”

 Jim didn’t even know what had happened. It wasn’t fair of them to try him for something he barely could remember or that had happened outside of the ship.

 Were they trying to find a scapegoat?

 “Treason,” another one agreed.

 “You can’t try him for treason if what is considered treason has not been made clear in court past conjecture,” Garrovick interrupted from where he had been listening. “Specifically speaking, it's not the only thing he's been charged with. Clerk, please list the details on his charges.”

 “ _Commander Kirk, James T. Charges currently on record. Article 106: Treason. Article 81: Conspiracy. Article 104: Aiding the enemy. Article 95: Breach of arrest and escape. Article 110: Improper hazarding of vessel.”_

 “Now these,” Garrovick said, “will need to looked at further in detail, nothing else. Continue, gentlemen.”

“How do you speak to the charges, Commander?”

 “Guilty, Admiral,” Jim said, guessing that they meant overall. He couldn’t say that he wasn’t guilty of something—but there wasn’t such a thing as half-guilty. He was practically struggling to make his voice as flat as possible.

 “And what do you say to the charge of treason?”

 “I’m not guilty. I agree with the other charges, but not this one.”

 “We’ll go through each and every one just for you, Commander,” Archer reassured smarmily.

 Bastards, Jim thought darkly, when it was clear from the rest of the admirals that they’d have much preferred it over and done with faster.

 “Let us begin with the last one, then,” Barnett instructed, and then leaned back. “I don’t particularly know your history with starships, Commander. Clerk, bring it up on screen.”

 “ _Article 110: Improper hazarding of vessel.”_ On it, the damage reports filled the screen, before they grew numerous and had to be shown by file name only.

 “To my awareness,” Barnett said, “You’ve had a history of this with the Enterprise. Spacedock reports you have a tendency of up to 210% more damage than the average starship.”

 “I take risks, Admiral.”

 “And other starship commands don’t?”

 Jim swallowed hard. He’d walked right into that one.

 “Continue to the next charge, clerk,” Barnett ordered.

  _“Article 95: Breach of arrest and escape.”_ On the screen was the report made by Cupcake. Jim didn’t know how he felt about that.

 “You escaped from confinement on the date on screen,” Barnett said. “You were ordered, by your commanding officer, into confinement. You freed yourself from it before being released by proper authority.”

“I walked outside of my limitations,” Jim said. “But yes, I am guilty of that.”

“Next charge.”

“ _Article 104: Aiding the enemy.”_

“Provided on-screen are transcripts of a conversation found from information Admiral Marcus sent to Starfleet HQ. Do you have anything to say, Commander?”

Whether it was Khan or Marcus, Jim was guilty of the charge on both accounts. “No, sir.”

“ _Article 81: Conspiracy.”_

“It has been established. Next.”

_“Article 106: Treason.”_

“Do you have anything to say?”

“I’d like to introduce something to the court,” Jim said, casting a glance at Garrovick. The man unfolded his arms, stone-faced. “But before I do, I have to confirm something. Has any of the information in the Enterprise computers been downloaded back onto Starfleet servers?”

 “The report reads that the backup process was too much to do for so sparse information,” Archer allowed.

“There’s a communication I recorded while we were out of Federation space. I’d like the court’s permission to obtain it and present it as evidence.” He’d learned enough about protocol and procedure that it’d just been second nature to record anything he wasn’t sure about, just so he could go over it with Spock or send to Pike to cover his ass. Hopefully it’d—

“Rejected.”

“Rejected?” Jim started.

“What does this communication entail? You are asking us to expend effort to obtain evidence you yourself did not in preparation for this investigation.” Archer frowned down at him. “Were you not informed of your trial date, Commander?”

“Yes, I was,” Jim said. It’d been among the documents that Scotty had presented with him. “But I thought it was—”

“Did you or did you not receive the notice?”

“I received it,” Jim replied shortly. “I just thought since it was within 120 days—“

“Commander,” Barnett interrupted. “What is the point of the communication you were to use as evidence?”

Oh, nothing except the fact that Jim had sort of revealed that Marcus knew the true story, and that Marcus had confirmed it by saying he needed to be killed, especially since he wouldn’t turn Khan over. Shit, that was probably where the conspiracy and treason charges were from—what with “being in league” with Khan, and furthermore sentenced to death.

“It’s one particular line I’m interested in, Admiral.”

“And what line would that be?”

“In which Marcus says he was intending to destroy the Enterprise from the very beginning, sir.”

“You are suggesting the Admiral violated—”

“I suggest nothing. I don’t have the authority.” Jim felt himself sneer. “Or the freedom to present the evidence, apparently.”

Barnett’s eyes were cold. “Interrupt me again, Commander,” he said, “And you will leave this trial with more than a court-martial date on your file, as a disgrace to the service.”

It was a warning in every sense in the word that extended further to his attitude. Jim had to actually take time to reel himself back. He clenched and unclenched his fists, breathing in deeply. He straightened again, eyes staring ahead.

“Admiral.”

Barnett nodded, satisfied, eyes boring into Jim’s. Jim didn’t know what the hell was going on at this point, but it was probably bad.

It was Archer who said the bad, but it was in a way that Jim didn’t expect. “You know…Commander,” he said, voice smooth, as though Jim were just some kind of trouble-making child, “we could just all brush this behind the carpet.”

“Admiral?”

“We’ve never had a Starship Captain stand trial before, ex-Captain or otherwise,” Archer continued. There was a rather conniving look on his face that Jim was pretty sure on anyone else wouldn’t have looked as nearly as shifty. “Think about that.”

For all of their talks about the Federation, the fact that higher-ranked personnel played politics like this made Jim felt sick. “I’m aware that I make a great deal of firsts.”

“No, no,” the man said dismissively. “I meant, if you were, ah, willing to admit your…faults.” There was a stress on the word, enunciated fully. “I’m sure my flag officers and I would be willing to reconsider the nature of your offenses and provide for you an alternate sentence.”

It was like saying the military justice system was theirs to do as they saw fit. Jim didn’t know if he’d have preferred this over being stripped of his rank over all, but he did know that either option wasn’t an option. Looking into the eyes of this tribunal felt like looking into the ugly side of Starfleet and having just a taste at what rank could do for you.

And what the fuck?

‘Admit his faults’. There was a shit load more to that, and Jim was pretty sure he was giving a way out that equivocated to being their bitch for the rest of his life. He was pretty sure all of them thought he was out of line.

“With all due respect, Admiral,” Jim said, mindful that a single word could offend just one person and it’d be over. “I would prefer to have an honest trial.”

None of them looked insulted, but a few of them looked derisive. “Even undergo one that is guaranteed to end in the death penalty?” Archer asked.

“Yes.” Treason was fraudulent, but at the very least, Jim could face the fuck-ups he’d been instigating since Day 1 and finally take responsibility. It was probably a little too late, but at least better than never.

He felt like every excuse was a justified excuse to be a martyr. And maybe that was it.

“I have no reason to believe you are guilty of treason, or that you have killed your commanding officer—there isn’t enough evidence to support it,” Barnett said at last. “However, the rest have been substantiated. In summary, you will be charged with conspiracy, aiding the enemy, breach of arrest and escape, and improper hazarding of vessel at a special court-martial.”

Special meant—

The panel looked slightly disgruntled, some of them shooting narrowed looks at Jim, before they agreed grudgingly. Jim had the feeling that he hadn’t been expected to get off with just a special court-martial. His heart pounded in his ears, and he snapped his gaze forward when Barnett spoke again.

“Commander,” he said, folding his hands, and leaning forward. “It would be to your benefit to procure for yourself a military attorney, paid for, or a civilian attorney, at your own expense.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

Barnett looked at him for a few more seconds, before nodding to himself. “Dismissed.”

A few moments later, a message appeared in Jim’s comm.

\--

The admirals left first. Jim had barely time to finally breathe before the officer beside him stuck out his hand for Jim to shake.

Jim took it automatically. “Captain Garrovick,” he acknowledged, noting the firm grip. “Thank you for speaking up on my behalf.” If he hadn’t said anything, Jim wouldn’t have stood a chance.

“None needed,” Garrovick grunted. “There’s a certain way we do things around here, but when there’s no immediate judge, officers tend to forget the manual.”

If anything, this was more than Jim could have ever hoped for. “We haven’t been introduced.”

Out of all that he’d been expecting, a Captain to snort at a neutral opener was not it. Garrovick cast a stern eye at him, nostalgic of the Academy instructors Jim used to clash with when he actually attended class and opened his mouth. “Heard some things about you, Kirk. No introduction required, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Should I take that as a compliment or a reprimand?”

Their hands dropped. Garrovick turned to gather his things, especially the PADD that Jim realized he’d been taking notes on. “Take it however you want. Word was out about you the moment you entered the Academy, but your scores made you stand out.”

“I take it you were impressed?”

Another snort. “Pike wanted to groom you into a beautiful 2IC that’d change Starfleet, I wanted you as my tactical officer. Nothing to be impressed about.”

The mention of Pike made a lump grow in Jim’s throat. “Really,” he said, lifting up the intonation at the end.

Garrovick didn’t seem to notice, shuffling around something on his personal PADD and then shutting it down. “Hell yeah, was all set to fight him for it too, especially since he’d already gotten Commander Spock as his First.” He closed the briefcase and studied Jim with something a little more than academic and military interest. “Imagine my surprise. You got neither, fast-tracked to Captain, and Pike passed his ship and crew down to you.”

Only to have it taken away, Jim thought. “Yes.”

“Anyway,” Garrovick continued, slipping the case into one hand and walking out. Jim found himself walking alongside him, entering the elevator. “Plenty who aren’t happy about that, hence your lovely court-martial. Second floor.”

Jim pressed it, watching as the elevator began its descent. “Yourself included?”

“Frankly, Kirk, I could give less than a damn. Going by your simulation results, I still think you would make a more than decent tactical officer than a Captain. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen you work in command, and I don’t care to. Being recommissioned into a different chain of command gives you more or less a better perspective on it all.”

Satisfied with the answer he’d given, Garrovick nodded and readjusted his sleeves, tugging them both over his wrists. In Jim’s opinion, it wasn’t really much of an answer.

But it wasn’t of a stretch to say that Garrovick probably knew what was going on a lot better than an outsider. Jim fixed Garrovick with a sidelong glance, contemplative. Maybe…

 

“How many cases have you dealt with this year?”

“Decent amount. Probably twelve by this date. You’ll be the thirteenth if it turns out you pick me to represent you.”

Flattery usually worked. “I imagine there aren’t very many military lawyers available on such short notice.” Jim could probably get some names out of this.

“Nice try,” Garrovick said, all hints of amiability gone. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth had drawn into a thin line. “Whatever you’re after, it’s private, just like your case is. You’d do better asking someone else. My advice? Watch who you knock shoulders with, and just don’t ask at all.”

If anything, this was less a threat, and more a warning. Meaning that Jim could still do it; the vibe he was getting from Garrovick was someone who would tolerate a certain amount of pushing.

It was frightening. Jim was walking on thin ice.

Then again, Jim had never been meant for any finesse.

“You can tell me at least something about my First Officer. His charges. Whether or not he’s in containment.” Hardly unreasonable requests.

“You know what I’ll do,” Garrovick fixed him with a look that made him glad that he hadn’t said the last bit out loud. “I’ll do even better. I’ll tell you to mind your own business, because it’s good for you. What you’re doing right now is Accessory after the Fact.”

“I’m not helping a crime.”

“I’m getting the impression that you’re normally a hell of a lot mouthier than you’re being right now, Kirk. Troublemaker isn’t a new nickname for you, I take it.”

“One answer,” Jim said. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

“Somehow I doubt that. You’re going to hinder Commander Spock’s trial, and that is one more charge I guarantee you that you don’t want on your list.”

Which meant it was more than just a little thing. “Garrovick—”

“I know that look. Fine.” The doors were already sliding open. “I’ll leave it here. You want me as your military attorney? Ask the secretary for my comm number. If not, ask her for a list of civilian lawyers. She’ll know some good ones.” He paused, and glanced behind his shoulder, gauging Jim specifically. “You don’t have anything to say?”

Jim forced a grin on his face, but all he wanted to do was shout. “I’m fine. Captain.”

Garrovick snorted. “Well, I’ll be,” he said, eyeing Jim with something that wasn’t derision, but wasn’t disbelief either. Contemplative. “Pike was right about you.”

The elevators doors closed behind him before Jim could ask.

\--

“What are you doing here?”

Jim shifted his shoulders back, hands in his pockets. “What?” he asked. “I’m not allowed to walk around?”

“This is a classified area.” Uhura looked pointedly at his ankle where a light was showing through his pants. “And your monitor says otherwise.”

“Would you believe just asking permission works wonders?” Jim said. “I could have stopped eating hospal food if I’d known that sooner.”

While it didn’t help much, the tension eased in the room, and Uhura didn’t look high-strung at his presence anymore. “You’d have to have known I was here,” she said, pulling back from her desk. She’d been working on Klingon cultural aspects, from what Jim could see at a glance on her monitor. “What do you want from me?”

“What makes you think I want anything?”

She stared at him.

Jim’s shoulders hunched as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’m here to apologize.”

“Yeah?” She leaned back in her chair, folding her arms. “Let’s have it.”

Her abruptness almost made him pause. Uhura definitely wasn’t one to beat around the bush.

Jim licked his lips. “Look. I’m—okay, so I don’t do this often—”

“If this is headed where I think, stop.” She didn’t seem angry now, and her tone was more warning—the kind she employed when she thought he was being ridiculous. Jim felt like he was in over his head with this. “At this rate, you’re going to insult me enough that I leave right now.”

“I’m sorry,” Jim managed. It didn’t sound like enough. He didn’t know how to express himself in a way that made him feel anything except exploitative. Being pushy and arrogant, and running headlong into things had always worked for him. Things that required certain finesse to them, and actual ability to empathize and not be able to turn that switch on and off—that was out of his expertise. “I didn’t mean to push you to tell me all of that. Back in the room.”

She didn’t frown, but she did look at him in a scrutinizing manner. It meant Jim still had a chance; she was giving him a window.

“Just because you ‘didn’t mean’ doesn’t mean that—”

“No, no, I get it."

“Do you really?” Uhura asked. Her lips thinned and her eyes flashed. “Because what I’m getting on my end is the fact that you’re kind of an asshole, pardon my language.”

Jim took a deep breath in. “I didn’t—I shouldn’t have done that,” he admitted. “Especially how I dealt with it. Your job doesn’t mean you deal with a commanding officer who’s an ass eighty-percent of the time. You shouldn’t,” he added.

He almost broke a sweat under the scrutiny she studied him with, but in the end, it prompted a smile. “And the other twenty-percent of the time?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.

“You should probably let me have it. I’m pretty bad at knowing when I’m getting obnoxious.”

“Somewhat bad,” she corrected. “But don’t flatter yourself. You weren’t the only one at fault. It was a trying morning full of bullshit.” She seemed hesitant.

“Reassignment woes?” Jim asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s really none of your business,” Uhura said firmly. Jim flinched, but she continued to speak. “Or at least, that’s what I’d normally want to say.”

There were plenty of things, and Uhura had all the right to her privacy. But from the way she was dealing with this—

“Spock’s trial?” Jim started. “What? You know-?”

“Yeah,” she said, tones clipped. “I know.” There were already signs that she was going to draw back; her back straightened, she looked right through him as though there was someone over and above his left shoulder. She was done with this conversation and ending it now.

He pulled a chair from the other side of the desk. “Uhura.”

“You know,” she said, “there’s something they hold us to do, when you’re—”

“Bones told me about his resignation, and he mentioned it,” Jim said quietly, sitting down. Uhura, to her credit, didn’t flinch like he had. His palms weren’t sweating, and he wasn’t shaking, but all Jim could think of was that of any conversation he’d ever let rest, of anything that he had to let go—this was not one of them. “But he won’t say more.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “It’s confidential, and.” She hesitated. “Well, it’s what it is. I take it you tried something?” Most likely it was Jim’s imagination, but the bitterness that flashed over her face and pinched her features appeared too vividly for the moment for him to forget it.

“Look, Uhura, I’ll be frank. I’ve asked someone who’s got some leg in Spock’s trial, and I was told to keep out of it. And yeah, I could. But I’m willing to bet, out of all the people here,” he fixed her with as much of an earnest look as he could, voice low, “that you know what’s going on, and you _might_ be willing to tell me. Please,” he added, because he _knew_ how this was. Apologizing, and then not even after, asking her for something.

She met his gaze evenly. “If you put it that way, I will.”

Jim was unprepared how easily she admitted it. “What?”

“Contrary to popular belief, we’re not all out to make this difficult for you.” She raised the side of her mouth in a thin smile. “And I don’t agree with what Spock is doing. I don’t.”

“…what happened?”

“He went to see you right after,” she said.

Jim’s heart almost stopped. That’d been—“Wait, are you saying it already happened? What was his sentence?”

“He was tried at general court,” Uhura said, closing her eyes.

His stomach dropped.

\--

Jim hadn’t had much time to think about it, but Spock on trial was difficult to imagine, having only seen him on the other side of an academic proceeding, and maybe the one time they’d been roped into a hearing for a check on a Star Base and Spock had been accused. It’d been a matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but Jim didn’t really think this was the case now.

For all the trouble it had taken to learn that there was a trial in the first place, it was surprisingly very easy to find out where he was. An Academy Instructor when he was grounded, Spock’s schedule was available for consultation and appointment making on the Starfleet Academy contact list. Sending a message resulted in an automatic away message detailing the time Spock was expecting to be away: Indefinitely until further notice.

It really shouldn’t have made him worry or somewhat nostalgic to see the familiar way Spock liked to write his memos. He’d noticed this the first time he’d gone over to Spock’s quarters to ask about a report he could use as a reference; Jim hadn’t been familiar with the formatting--the Academy taught a similar version but with outdated principles and options--and he’d figured nobody would be particularly impressed if he were to just write: _Commendations on the whole crew._ Spock had lent him a copy of his own report, and as well, one of Pike’s old ones for keeping.

“Perhaps,” Spock had said then, “This will be of better use in your storage than it is in mine.”

At the time, Jim had just been glad to have it over and done with, but now he wondered exactly how long Spock had been in possession of it when he’d had to convert the file to open it. First impressions of Spock didn’t lead Jim see him as someone who kept things if they weren’t directly in need or useful. First impressions of a _Vulcan_ definitely saw no logic in retaining something with sentimental value.

Jim narrowed it down to two locations. He would’ve originally put Spock for someone to stay his downtime at Academy barracks (especially as the more cushy ones for senior officers were more than luxuriously huge if delivering something to Pike on his off-day had anything to go by), but Spock actually had an small apartment off-campus that was located a few miles off the busier, more popular streets. It’d been something Uhura and Jim had talked about once, Jim wondering if Vulcans actually ever slept, and Uhura confessing they bundled up like little wraps and that it irritated her so much that they could wake up and still look like they were ready for the day. The second was Spock’s office in the Administrator’s building on the Academy grounds. While it wasn't like he could justify going there himself, the pre-trial arrest only actually did last so long.

Quickly as he could, Jim signed his AMA discharge form, and walked the hell out of there. From the satellite, he figured that the Academy was probably the lesser of two evils that Spock would have wanted to put himself in. God knew that if Jim had his own office in an official Starfleet building, he would be staying away to avoid recognition, never mind that in Starfleet, a desk meant for a Kirk had been present for already two generations.

He might've otherwise been a bit more thrilled to explore San Francisco and take in the fact that he was actually breathing in non-recycled, non-horrified air, but since he'd been kept indoors so long, all he really wanted to do was do what he came for, no distractions. To his surprise, it wasn't all that hard to do.

Jim had forgotten how big the city was, so he ended up taking the shuttle, watching as the world sped past. Jim had always preferred the places where he was safest, and Sam had always preferred the places where nobody knew you were. Vulcan had been a part of a larger community. While Jim could never know the extent of Spock’s loss, he wondered for what Spock would throw away what he still had.

It was actually really illogical to be scared of death when you were dying, because there wasn’t a point to it. And maybe that was why Jim was still illogical, and why even now, anything to do with Spock conflicted within him so much because it was so contradictory to his own nature.

Having the directions to Spock's apartment downloaded onto his PADD and also deciding to take the bus turned out to be a good thing. The walks leading to that sometimes didn't go all the way, and went off on twists and turns. If Jim hadn't been convinced Spock picked the one logically the closest to campus--there was a transport bus that went directly anywhere within a ten minute walk, but it wasn't marked--he might've thought that Spock had done this to thwart any would-be drunk assholes who decided punking a Starfleet officer was a good idea.

Knocking on the door, Jim waited. And then, to his surprise, Spock opened the door, dressed out of uniform--which, Jim really hadn't given much thought to until now.

For the most part, Jim had probably surprised Spock as much as Spock had surprised Jim. They stared at each other for a good minute, Jim taking in the slacks, the sweater, the ever perfection that was Spock's bowlcut. "Hi."

To his credit, Spock didn't immediately slam the door on him, so that was a good sign. He didn't answer right away either, glancing around, and then looking back to Jim, a question in his eyes. "Captain," he said.

It’d been a long time since he'd heard his voice. Jim had forgotten the way Spock could make saying a rank be even more accusatory than it actually was.

"Commander," Jim corrected. Now that all the wonder and howdy-do of actually finding Spock was over, he was a strange mix of apprehension and exhaustion. "But if it makes you happy, why not. Hey, can I come in?"

Spock looked like he was deliberating on the easiest and most polite way to say no.

"I came straight from the hospital," Jim said. "Also, my court-martial's next week, and Garrovick convinced my probation officers to let me do this." In Garrovick's oddly compelling words, he'd made it clear that while Commander Kirk as they knew didn't listen to orders, lied on false statements, and brazenly broke the regulations, he was otherwise a normal citizen with just a few shades darker of black marks on his records. "So yeah." He spread his hands. "Free man until the day’s due."

"You have come a long way," Spock noted. It seemed like he was struggling with putting together why Jim was here in the first place, so Jim just shrugged. With Scotty, he'd felt confused and scared enough to wonder what the hell was going on. With Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov, he'd felt betrayed knowing exactly what hell was going on. With Bones, he'd just felt tired and angry enough to be upset with himself and what he'd inevitably forced Bones to do. Now, standing here in front of Spock, all Jim could think was that he was just done with all of this.

"Just wanted to check if you were okay," Jim said. He really hadn't thought much about what he was going to do if he actually did find Spock. Part of him wanted to ask what the hell Spock was thinking, but another part of him found that with all that had happened, maybe he was better off not knowing, which no. Not now.

"I am adequate, Commander."

"Are you?" Jim asked, before he could stop himself. "You have a trial coming up. Bones told me. I figured it was general court-martial for you to isolate yourself like this, but Uhura confirmed it.”

Something changed in Spock's demeanor. Jim didn’t know exactly what it was, but it was sudden. Spock’s shoulders stiffened, his eyes flickered, and it felt like walking right into a trap.

“Then you know,” Spock informed him solemnly, “why I must do this.”

So Jim wasn't completely right, but he was right enough that it meant something.

 _It has to be more than just the guilt that would make you do this,_ Jim wanted to say, but all he could think about was how much he could understand. How out of anyone here, Jim was the last person who was allowed argue with Spock on this.

It was Spock’s way of saying he had come to terms with it. Fuck that.

"Can I crash on your couch or something, just for a while?" Jim asked suddenly. It wasn’t planned or anything—he hadn’t really thought past what he’d do after checking the apartment, but then again, he’d never expected Spock would’ve been so easy to find. "Really don't want to have to muster the effort or the fare to go back just because we decided a five minute chat was good enough."

Spock inclined his head. The logic appealed, was all Jim cared to think of it. "Of course."

His apartment was small, just as the doctor ordered, but it wasn't tiny and cramped. There was a breathable space, several windows where the light shone in and where Jim saw Spock had put several plants, surrounded by minimalist furniture. A hallway led off to probably the more private rooms. Jim could see the appeal, but he couldn’t see this as home for anybody.

"Who waters these?" he asked, padding forward to inspect a branch of a particularly viney one. He wasn't surprised when it shied away from his touch, but he knew enough that Spock probably wouldn't have had a dangerous plant in his own living quarters.

"There is an old Terran gardening tool," Spock confessed, as Jim was trying to coax it. He probably was referring to the upside down bulbs filled with water, extending down into the soil, like one of those old thermometers, but just connected to a small pipeline. "My mother was fond of them."

"Handy. Sucks that there's not much to do here."

"On the contrary. It has been very peaceful."

Why did this remind Jim of—

Oh.

The realization suddenly made his impromptu drop-in visit all the more unreasonable. Turning to look at Spock, he was taken aback to see that Spock wasn’t looking away—but staring straight at him, as though Jim’s presence here wasn’t anything more than polite company.

"Aren't you scared?" Jim asked, before he could stop himself. "It's the death penalty.”

"Death for us is as much more than just an event, Commander.” It sounded and felt so impersonal, as though dying was just a slap on the wrist. As though it was something Spock didn’t fear. “It has for us spiritual as well as religious foundations." Calm was not a word for Spock, because his movements at gently brushing the leaves with the knuckles of his fingers were smooth, and his face, neutral—but his eyes spoke a different language, grim and almost harrowing. "I am well at ease and I have accepted this."

Spock remembered. The implication alone was more than enough to convince Jim that Spock was thinking more than he was talking about, remembered seeing Jim die. That Jim dying, that the stillness, that maybe when the light faded from Jim’s eyes or whatever poetic nonsense hadn’t just been a ‘more than just an event’—it wasn’t, at all, and it hadn’t been and never would be. It conveyed the exact opposite of all the things that Jim was pretty sure Spock had just said—what he had either been trained to say, or had learned and picked up in some way or another, that it was more acceptable as a Vulcan to say this.

So with all that, _how the fuck was it okay_? Spock knew what it was like on the other side. He knew what it was like to watch someone kick the bucket before you because they’d decided to take some kind of kamikaze route, and Jim was pretty damn sure he mattered, and that it wasn’t one-sided, and that it wasn’t a matter of being unable to express it in noncomplex terms. Spock had lost his mother, his entire planet—and maybe he’d lost some more, Jim didn’t know all the details.

But this was Spock going to walk the death march, and that he was prepared to have everyone that gave a damn the same pain and emotions that he’d gone through this whole time on his own. That he knew, and still.

For some reason, Jim couldn’t help but compare this. He knew every single one of the faces and names of the children he’d come to know as a child at the complex, the ones who hadn’t come back more than the ones who had. And every member of his crew who had ever served with him who had died in their duty; he knew theirs too. He knew more than anything, because though he wasn’t supposed to, he was on their away missions with them.

And right now, more than anything, Jim found himself furious.

It angered him that Spock had a _choice_ ; he had people who still gave a shit about him, and he was still making this one. Jim didn’t care about Vulcan ideals and culture right now, because this wasn’t the issue here. Uhura hadn’t just stopped with telling Jim that Spock was being tried by general court-martial; she’d told him another thing: that Spock had turned _himself_ in after being AWOL, when someone from Starfleet had found him and Uhura lugging Khan’s body back. Spock had been charged with desertion and had convinced the residing authority that Uhura had only been there on his orders. There’d been bullshit behind the scenes, Uhura’s ties from the incident itself had been cut _completely_ even though she’d no idea what was going on amongst all the suspicions, anger, and frustration.

"Yeah?" Jim put his hands into his pockets and turned to watch Spock head to one of the chairs, arranged only to face one direction. There was only one chair really that faced the others, and it was an unsaid invitation for Jim to stand or sit as he wanted.

Funny, Jim thought as he studied his first officer. Spock thought about everything. Except that he didn't.

He stared at Spock, and Spock gazed back, hands folded in his lap. It looked odd to see Spock out of uniform, but there was certainly an officer in those civvies at least.

Jim knew Spock’s sense of responsibility and morality—and actually, if anyone had a greater grasp on it, it was Spock. Preventing the genocide of innocent lives, Spock’s decision to waive mercy on Nero, the frightening degree akin to his own that Spock would sacrifice his life—by all the faucets of Spock’s personality that Jim had encountered and had probably yet to know as well as the ones Spock had personally let him, Jim had more than a good stance to see where Spock was coming from, and why Spock was even doing this.

He wasn’t okay with it. He was so far from fucking okay. It made no fucking sense.

It frustrated him that someone who didn’t even to die wanted to die to atone or some kind of fucked up obligation to his culture or equally fucked up sense of adhering to the rules. And maybe it was hypocritical, but he didn’t care. Spock had chosen not to tell Jim, to pretend it was all okay, to deal with it basically on his own and like this was the final ending. And Jim thought about all the people he’d known and cared for and gave more than a flying fuck about. Maybe it was stupid and horrendous and terrible to say that the list wasn’t that big. He thought about all the people he’d known he hadn’t given two shits about, but he didn’t have any reason to. Maybe it said something about his ever-pulled-into-question sense of morality, but Jim didn’t give a shit about saving everyone for the greater good; he gave a shit about no-win scenarios and doing what he could. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the fucking few, fuck that. Jim was no hero. Spock didn’t. Didn’t fucking need to be.

"Hey, Spock," he said, and it was ironic that his voice came out casual. Inside he felt like just shouting everything—that he knew, that he knew exactly what had been going on. "Were you ever going to tell me?"

Spock hesitated. It was proof enough that he was aware why Jim had even looked him up in the first place. "Doctor McCoy urged me, yes.” He didn’t mention anyone else, which meant he’d kept her out for the most part. “I, on the other hand, convinced him to wait."

Jim almost sneered. Casually, he leaned on one hip onto the side of the chair opposite the coffee table from Spock. Whatever it was that pissed him off about Spock’s statement, he had no fucking clue other than the fact that Spock had opted for dealing with this on his own, dealing with everything under the table—just, _dammit_ , Spock. "This any reason why my crew didn't even tell me about their reassignments?"  How much did it take for Spock to convince them?

So he probably knew the answer already, the reason to all the why’s that he could’ve asked, and that he was going to ask anyway, because it wasn’t so much of a figuring out what it was and hoping it was right. Spock hadn’t wanted to tell him, and not even Bones’s conscience had held any sway on convincing him.

Jim wanted to know for sure, and he wanted to hear it straight from Spock.

There was no apologetic expression on Spock's face. "I do understand the need to mourn," He replied, "But it was inevitable to pass, and summarily, inevitable for them to move on. I had no such jurisdiction to stop them in their decision."

Forget jurisdiction. This wasn’t what Jim was trying to ask.

Jim understood that it was selfish—and that fuck, Spock had been raised Vulcan and maybe being selfish had been the last thing he’d ever let himself have—but once he gave thought to the idea, his stomach churned with the idea of Spock so accepting of an "inevitable" death, which, no. Fuck that. It hit too close to home.

And for all the people who cared about Spock—Uhura, who had tried everything in the book and recognized that this was beyond what she could do to help; Bones, who had probably argued with Spock about every one of his actions; the rest of the crew who probably had an idea about Spock’s trial through hearsay; maybe Spock’s dad, the remaining family he had left—for all of these people that cared, why would Spock throw his life away?

"No," Jim said, and words that he couldn’t control started to come out of his mouth. "You had a jurisdiction. You know it." It was up to a commanding officer to say or nay it. Spock had been next in command. "You just chose not to do any fucking thing about it. Logical, I applaud you, really. Carries on even now. “

Spock didn’t answer him. Instead, he looked almost apprehensive, preparing himself.

Fuck him.

It made his fist clench tighter, his lungs feeling like he couldn’t breathe. Just hearing the calm responses when Jim felt like he was going to explode made him his stomach churn violently. He sucked in a breath, trying to figure out his response, but all he ended up with was, “How were you going to tell me?”

“Commander?”

“Were you just going to leave me a message that said, ‘Oops, sorry I died,’ or something?”

The silence was enough to affirm everything.

“Why would you do it, Spock?” Jim asked. “Without telling me?” He wasn’t great at choosing the right questions, he wasn’t great at playing any mind games despite popular opinion because it was difficult to classify anyone into categories, but he knew at least that he couldn’t leave it here.

Shouldn’t Jim have warranted at least a farewell? After everything?

“You did not need to know.”

“Oh, really.” Jim even felt the dismissal. He bristled. “Why not?”

The look Spock gave him was positively end-of-discussion. “It was irrelevant.”

“The hell it was.” Jim slammed a hand on the back of the chair. The thud echoed in the quiet room, but Spock had not flinched or reacted in the slightest. “My first officer—you. You could have told me. I was in that room, I asked and I ordered, as both your friend and, what—dammit, Spock, did you even think this through at all?” He was shaking with more than anger. Everything was too complicated for what it was supposed to be.

Spock regarded him coolly, budging not an inch. “I am Vulcan, Commander. That is what I do.”

Jim was sick of it. He was done with it all. It didn’t matter who it was, everyone that actually mattered to him died before he could say goodbye. Whether or not it was Pike or—unwittingly, he thought of Sam, about the possibility that’d always haunted him, that maybe Sam had known that the distress call from Vulcan had been a fucking suicide mission; his blood ran cold. His brain just _stopped._

“Sam,” he said, and even his voice felt detached from him. Maybe it was his imagination, that Spock stiffened, but all Jim could think about was the incredible feeling of loss. “He served on the Farragut.”

Shit. It was so hard to talk about it, because his voice came out croaky, and freedom of a loose tongue didn’t come on its own.

Talking to Bones in the private of a temporary office and talking to Spock in the private of a residential leased apartment were completely different. With Bones, there had been the unspoken promise that everything was confidential. That, no matter what Jim said to him, Bones wouldn’t take it for face value as strongly as he would take a good hard look at him and say, “Dammit, Jim,” and do whatever needed to be done. Sometimes he bullied Jim about talking something, anything out, saying it wasn’t healthy to keep things inside. It didn’t always agree with him, but Bones was _constant._ And for that matter, Jim knew Bones. He was a Southern, crass-talking doctor who had a bleeding heart for all of his patients. Bones knew Jim, because Bones felt strongly about things more than anyone Jim had ever come across, and he wouldn’t have betrayed any of it if he had a choice. There was no such guarantee with Spock.

Every word Jim was speaking felt weighted, shoved onto a plate and sent out to be served and judged.

Aware of the eyes that were scrutinizing him now, Jim continued, swallowing heavily. “He was a science officer like you. And he had.” It was difficult to remain slow enough to be coherent. “He died on the Farragut.”

Dammit. Just go.

Jim’s eyes snapped up. “You know who that man was? He was my fucking brother, Spock. _My brother._ The last time I talked to him, I was thirteen and he was running away from home.”

Even now he remembered the bad taste in his mouth and how hard it’d been to choose between staying and going with him, and how for years onwards, he’d replayed that disappointed look on Sam’s face in his mind over and over again. Because he’d had an option to go with him.

“I never got to say goodbye or fucking _sorry_ to him, because he never wanted to see me.” It was so selfish, making it about him, but Jim really wasn’t humanitarian, and he could only really speak for himself. “I looked. For years. And you hear me out, Spock. I’m not comparing what you’re going through to what I did but—right now, you’re pulling the _exact same shit that he did_. How the _fuck_ do you think I feel?”

Spock's lips thinned. "Commander, do not berate me for my decisions."

"You want berate? I'll give you berate. I berate you for every fucking decision you've made under my command. And you know my first officer? Commander Spock, of the USS Enterprise? That fucking asshole went into a volcano and was prepared to die there, and I said fuck no, we're pulling you out. And he asked me, why? How fucking dare you think I wouldn't pull you out. How _dare you think this is the same as that suicide mission?_ "

"Commander," he said slowly, and Jim watched Spock's hands tighten on the armchair.  "I suggest you stop."

Jim was too angry to stop. “You know life. You’re a scientist. You’re Vulcan. Life? You know the sanctity in it, believe in it. You know the logical everything. You _know_ the definition between sacrifice and suicide _—”_

There was a twitch in Spock’s eye, and his lips pressed into a thinner line. “Commander.”

What? What the fuck did Spock want from him? Clearly _Jim_ was going to just sit there and nod and say that was fucking okay, have a nice day, can’t wait to mourn you. “Khan, Spock. Do you remember Khan? Because I sure as hell do. " Even now, he remembered the feeling of utter uselessness, split between Admiral Marcus’s decision to decimate his entire crew, and how much he feared no one would be alive—that he’d failed them all.

Spock's eyes closed, mouth drawing into a thin line, statuesque. "Commander, please cease this."

"Who was it that stalled long enough?" Jim demanded, stepping closer. "You didn't fucking bend over. You didn't let Khan kill me. I was alive enough to save everyone because of you. And I didn't regret it--I don't regret turning over the Enterprise over to you, Spock, I don't regret the radiation because at least--"

"Commander."

"We’re the same rank, so don’t call me Commander.” Jim paused. “You're angry, Spock."

"I am not." Spock opened his eyes. Jim met them.

"You are."

He almost missed it, Spock lashing out to shove him away and against the wall. Wind knocked out of him, Jim could only blearily take in the fact that Spock was ready to strangle him, and was now frozen.

"See?" Jim panted, leaning his head back. It hit against the wall and he hissed. Spock drew his hand back as if it'd been burned. "You got angry, because I’m throwing all this shit at you, and your fucking rational says one thing, but that part of you that values yourself as a person says Fuck You, Jim Kirk in big, beautiful, Vulcan script. Just. This whole thing, with Starfleet. You’re human, Spock. Where’s the fucking logic in doing this, Spock? Tell me. Who benefits?"

Spock stepped back.

There was a difference between giving up and giving in, and Jim was tired to hell and back that everyone wanted to give in before they even gave fighting for the right for something.

"Spock," he said, "I want you as my first officer, not dead."

Spock exhaled softly. He looked like he was still reigning himself in, but he managed enough that he could look Jim in the eye again. "Then," he replied, hands at his sides clenching agitatedly open and closed, "I request that you leave and close the door after you."

Funny how things happened despite fuck all.

Jim couldn't understand why the hell Spock refused to--why the hell--

Even though it was supposed to go through, and Spock had heard enough and said, 'Yeah, no.'

Jim winced as he straightened. "Fine," he said, and maybe he should've been louder. He was disappointed. That he'd thought more of Spock, that he'd thought more of basically everything of him.

Spock disappeared into the backrooms. Jim didn't follow him.

Instead, he took one last survey around this haven, the place that Spock had spent in house arrest or self-exile or whatever the fuck he’d chosen for the longest time. Maybe this was why they hadn’t even locked him up somewhere, but—Was this better, he wanted to ask?

"Did you give up the Vulcan Science Academy for this?" he shouted angrily, and he wanted to pitch something, break something. "Did you fucking pat yourself on the back for this bullshit? You left because you wanted to explore space, Spock, not to fucking die!"

There wasn’t an answer.

Frustrated and angry, Jim slammed the door as hard as he could.

\--

“You told him that?”

“What, shit?” Jim slammed his hand, however lightly, on the table. “I’m supposed to know the right thing to say?”

From the other side of the comm screen, his former communications officer sat with her lips pursed and her eyebrows furrowed. Then she sighed. “No, I think I must’ve expected too much from you. Usually you’re some kind of a miracle worker.”

Jim was unamused. “Ha ha, thanks.”

“I’ll deal. I appreciate you still going, either way.” Jim must’ve had on some form of incredulous expression, because Uhura explained herself not even five seconds after. “I know, didn’t do anything, and for all that you’re talking calmly, I’m sorry, okay? You’re pissed as hell, Spock’s now more of a hermit, what else is new.” She looked tired and angry. “You’re both too complicated for regular people to want to figure out.”

“I don’t understand where you get off telling me this,” Jim said.

"I don’t,” she shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I can’t say thanks, for—just talking to him, you know?”

“He’s my first officer,” Jim said.

They both knew that wasn’t the real reason.

“And you’re our Captain, huh?” Uhura looked like she’d bitten her tongue. She amended it by smiling as though she’d swallowed something sour. “Don’t answer that. When’s your date?”

“Twentieth.”

“Who’s representing you?”

“Captain Garrovick. Have you heard of him?”

The look she shot at him was one of pure disbelief. “Yes. I have.”

He waited.

“Haven’t you bothered even looking up the credentials of the man representing you?”

“I figured I could wait with the research,” Jim said.

“You obviously know. Don’t play me.”

Okay, she had him. “I’m not sure I agree with his overall political career.”

Uhura rolled her eyes. “Well, sir, far be it from me to make any judgment calls, but you should be alright.”

“Carry on away, Lieutenant,” Jim said, smile mirthful, and he was surprised when she did.

\--

Starfleet had become the singular governing authority so much that as Federation citizens, they’d never lived knowing any other else. It was a focal point that Jim had only managed to not know about by sheer grace of spending the past month in the largest and most heavily funded hospital in San Francisco that, being mostly a military hospital, obviously liked to stay on Starfleet’s good side.

The last time Jim had been obligated to take part in a trial, it hadn’t been to any fanfare—not when he’d been under-aged, and the court had been obligated to protect him as a minor, and everyone involved had been keen to keep it under wraps. Now, it seemed like there was scarcely any quiet about it. Apparently word had gotten out about some kind of pseudo-incarceration behind-the-scenes, and now people were talking and getting angry about it—the exact opposite of what anyone in a political position would’ve wanted. It was everywhere: no matter where you looked, it dotted the MediaComm in bridges as the people went along their daily life, because if you forced a form of media to stay completely silent about something, they were bound to revolt.

All the anger wasn’t even all because of Jim, which left some form of relief and then none at all. There had been dissent going on for a while; families who had lost their own had been rallying for a change of policy and leadership in Starfleet, if not the methods of the Federation for the past few decades. Recently came Nero’s massacre, which had skyrocketed in civilian demands to Starfleet about what they were doing, and furthermore, what the Federation was planning as a whole. And someone, Jim had been chagrined to find out, had managed to find out about the disappearance of Admiral Marcus.

He shouldn’t have been surprised that it hadn’t been kept hush-hush, but considering that there were rare few of Starfleet Command who hadn’t been killed in what the MediaComm was calling a nameless terrorist attack, he’d hoped well enough would have been left alone. If he were blatantly obvious about it, he’d tried to push it to the back of his mind. Because it wasn’t about forgetting; it was about not letting things control you when you couldn’t afford to let them, and at the same time never denying what they taught you.

Bones had once remarked that Jim hadn’t liked having the tables turned. It’d been after a diplomatic mission gone wrong; Jim had been all for honesty, but he hadn’t been perfect in the grand scheme of things. The Aurelians hadn’t taken very kindly.

“You don’t like people pulling the same shit on you that you pull on them, huh,” Bones had observed with a raised eyebrow, when Jim had stalked into his office in frustration.

So he understood, in a way, why this trial was even being pulled as a special court martial. He understood how even remotely fucking lucky he was. This was a chance to have a do-over. He’d get off lucky either way, well enough no matter how it turned out. Politics would work out their shit, and he would find some way to get into someone’s good graces again. It was severely underhanded, it was reality, and Jim hated it.

He understood now why Pike had wanted reform, and not even half of how Pike had wanted to do it.

\--

To his credit, Captain Garrovick acted as Jim might’ve thought a professional would’ve reacted. Or at least, someone who’d clashed with Pike enough to adopt contrary and similar enough mannerisms of brusqueness. “Took your goddamned time, Kirk. I was starting to think the raging media outside had taken you hostage.”

“Close enough,” Jim admitted. “But they’re a lot more interested in boycotting Starfleet than storming JAG headquarters.”

“Half-trampled to death, then.” Garrovick stood up. “Alright, assuming you’re here for matters concerning your trial and not for wherever you went a couple of days ago that warranted the full twenty-four hours, sit down. I’ve got several files for you that I want you to read before we get started with any of this--”

“Sir.”

Garrovick looked annoyed. “Don’t you ‘sir’ me, Kirk. I haven’t earned the extra stripe, and if you don’t like it that way, tough it out. Sit down and don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Captain,” Jim tried again, obediently sitting down, “I want to say—”

“If this isn’t about your trial, I don’t want to hear it. If you’re confessing to a new charge, I also don’t want to hear it. Alright,” he said, moving back to the desk, “I’ve got the files right here.” He tapped the screen of his PADD, “and I’m sending you a copy to your own account. Now,” he continued, “I’ll go over this with you. I do this with all my clients, but I want you to take special notice of anything you want me to go through—procedure, anything. You’re smart, Kirk. I figure you’ll be happy at least knowing what to expect, but anything you want to be sure of, you just ask.”

“I did a bit of studying,” Jim said, feeling like he was being dismissed.

“Yeah? Alright. Hit me. You wanna know how to win your trial guaranteed to the last member of the tribunal? No? Good. Because neither do I.” Before Jim could protest, Garrovick raised a hand. “You’ve had a thorough investigation. Your charges are listed, and I’m your representation. You also had the option to present evidence to defend yourself or mitigate whatever they’re accusing you of. If you chose a witness, an investigative officer would have cross-examined them. Fair game.”

“I already know all this.”

“And I’m assuming that whoever wants you up in this place wants you cleaned up and out of the way, nice and tidy, under the rug.” The steel in Garrovick’s eyes was something Jim had only ever really seen in men who had experiencing commandeering their own ships; he was hard-pressed to try to avoid looking away or deny that there was a pressure and obligation to answer somehow.

Jim swallowed. “Captain.”

Satisfied, Garrovick heaved a sigh. “If you don’t want me going over the foundation, let me know what it is you want to learn.” He got up again.

Maybe Jim should have been slightly worried for how long he was spending at the cabinet, because Garrovick returned roughly three minutes later with roughly five PADDs.

“What are these?” he asked, picking one up and turning it on.

“These,” Garrovick said with a look, “will make your life a hell of a lot easier, Kirk. Don’t give me that face. You play 3D chess with that bluff? The court’s all about playing it. I’ve heard you’ve got an impressive score.”

“It’s been a while,” Jim admitted. He’d had some games with Spock from time to time on downtime and maybe played a few rounds in the rec room with some of his crew, but Jim hadn’t so much touched a set since he’d woken up. “With due respect, I don’t really see how that’s applicable here, unless you’re telling me to strategize a tactical maneuver against a court room to take out the judge.”

“Close enough to what we want. You played well, you gambled and you won your tribunal, so now you’re here. Same application.” Garrovick leaned back.

“If my trial’s going to be anything like my investigations inquiry,” Jim said, “I don’t think 3D chess is going to cut it.” He thought once more about Archer’s suggestion. “At all.”

“Kirk. I’m not asking you to take risks. For once, I’m asking you to trust someone who is willing to let you make your own judgments. But,” he said, and then he leaned forward until Jim was looking at him straight in the eye and couldn’t look away. “But.”

“But?”

“I need you to be as informed as I am, because at this level and rank, you can’t afford not to be. It would’ve been excusable if you hadn’t been a senior officer, but as a Commander, how you dealt with your investigations inquiry was laughable. You didn’t know what you were doing, and it’s by pure luck you didn’t shoot your case straight to general. There were things you could’ve left out, and things that didn’t warrant antagonizing the court.”

“I’m not sure I understand your point.”

“Kirk,” he said, “I don’t agree with me speaking entirely for you. I disagree with you playing all this by ear, because believe me, you will be on the short end of the stick by the end of it.”

Jim shouldn’t have been angry, but he was. “Garrovick, if I’d had the luxury of—”

“I believe that there’s going to be some miscommunication, that I might misinterpret anything, but understand that for the whole part I _will_ be helping you as much to my ability, and that’s what I need you to know, so you don’t fuck up your own trial.”

Jim nodded, but he didn’t look away. “Is there a reason why you’re telling me all of this?”

It wasn’t that Jim didn’t appreciate the gesture and how far Garrovick was going to let him know that all in all, he was on Jim’s side. It wasn’t that Jim didn’t appreciate either that his own counsel actually gave a fuck about whether or not treason was an accurate charge. He appreciated too that Garrovick seemed to know Jim didn’t take kindly to being babied or watching behind the scenes without a shred of influence on what was going on. But there was something about this conversation that made the back of his hair crawl, and made him rethink about depending too much on this man. Jim’s instincts—though never perfect—had been one of the few things that had kept him on that Captain’s chair for the year he’d been given the Enterprise.

Garrovick sighed. He finally pulled back his chair and sat back. From this proximity, Jim could see the grey hairs dotting along the top of his head and sides; Pike had had a full head of it, and it seemed Garrovick wasn’t that far off, if not already there.

“In all fairness,” Garrovick said, “I’m not sure how to deal with you.”

“What with the same rank?” Jim asked wryly. To say he was surprised in the least when the man before him didn’t reply immediately was an understatement.

“Nothing about it,” Garrovick said, and then studied Jim intensely. “Pike was always waxing poetry about you, even if you were a full time job yourself. And I still, for the love of anything, can’t understand why he’d bet so much on you.”

“You’re going to have to explain that,” Jim said, because that was just out of nowhere. “Forgive me if I overstate my boundaries, but I fail to see how that has anything to do with my trial.”

“It has everything to do with your trial,” Garrovick said, and then he sighed. “Of course you don’t know.”

It was strange to hear frustration come out of this man’s mouth. Jim had taken him as somewhat stern, and it wasn’t a lie to say that Jim didn’t mind about his personality (in fact, it was a great deal more preferable than someone who’d soften the blow or whatever other option Jim could’ve gotten), but what was going on?

“Know what?” he demanded. It felt like there was a huge secret going on behind the scenes that Jim had somehow managed to trip into. “You’re going to have to be a bit clearer.”

Garrovick didn’t hesitate. He looked Jim in the eye. “You want fact? Here we go. The investigations inquiry was originally filed by Admiral Pike, not Admiral Barnett. Pike was your convening authority.”

Jim’s heart didn’t stop. It beat faster. “Are you trying to tell me that Admiral _Pike_ put me in here?”

Pike wanted him to be on his ship. Pike wanted to take him on the five-year-mission. Why would-?

Garrovick shrugged. “Granted,” he continued, “I’m not sure if he meant for it to become this big.”

He didn’t even need to say it, that Pike wasn’t a big fan of playing this whole political mess, but he was good at it. Jim _knew_ that, because he hadn’t had a shadow of a doubt that Pike hadn’t earned his rank, and wasn’t the best person to have deserved to sit in the Captain’s chair of any starship.

But what was going on now, _whatever_ it was, was something entirely off topic. Past colleague or no, Garrovick was painting an entirely different picture from the man Jim knew, and frankly, Jim wanted no fucking part of it.

He stood up, feeling disgust pour into every ounce of his body. And even though Jim knew it was ridiculous, knew it was a bad idea, and knew that _out of all the times when he should just let something go_ , he couldn’t. He walked right out.

\--

Garrovick was fucking biased, that was one thing. You could argue there was truth in his words, but at the same time, Garrovick was still in the military, and military personnel from personal experience, (self-reflective or no) hardly had any place at all being forthright with what they wanted. If there was no point to it, he wouldn’t say it, and he’d made it abundantly clear that first meeting that of the things Jim wanted to know, it was best if his nose stayed out of business that wasn’t his to begin with.

The fact was, Pike had _every_ bit to do with it, but Jim didn’t want to fucking ask. He could’ve argued that since Garrovick had started it, he was obligated to finish it, but right now, Jim was being honest with himself. Something more than just defamation was what he wanted. He didn’t want the blame; he didn’t even think he could stomach it hearing it from the other Captain.

It wasn’t his prerogative to dig up what was going on, but it was his prerogative to wonder what Pike had been thinking. ~~.~~ Jim had been nothing but a huge disappointment to him, so why?

\--

“Chekov,” Jim said the instant his navigator’s—ex-navigator’s face appeared on screen. “Hey.”

Out of all the members of Jim’s crew, the most eager to please had always been Chekov. This time, however, Chekov hesitated.

“Commander,” he said, and then he didn’t say anymore, looking caught. “I did not expect you to comm.”

“I need a favour, Chekov.” He said. Gingerly, he tried to offer a grin, but Chekov’s face was as hard to read as ever. “A big one. Think you could help me out?”

 --

Asides from being more cosmopolitan than a small town that had learned how to accommodate big amounts of people who seemed to exist only in the nightlife, San Francisco was actually pretty convenient. One of the things nobody had told Jim when he’d up and decided to plunk his ass in San Francisco was the fact that was that no matter what kind of fuck up happened in San Francisco, it was one of the best at accommodating everyone. They were no strangers to streets getting closed for some out of the blue performances and the like, and transport always was accommodating to make up for that, so Jim really didn’t have to worry about getting back to wherever he was going next.

Because the majority of San Francisco bay area itself was half-Academy grounds and half a tourist/local area, it wasn’t uncommon enough for itself for either a cadet or a civilian to wander past the signs. The City’s tourism industry favoured the waterfront view, as did the rest of the residents. Jim didn’t go to the split area often himself; there were too many people, and at night, the fog rolled in and the temperature dropped around ten degrees from what it’d been in the morning. So instead, he went for a walk, watched the tide ebb, and then ended up returning back to one of the many libraries within the Academy buildings.

Out of all the members of Jim’s crew, there was really only one person it was unusually easy to get along with. Sulu didn’t ask for much. Neither did he for most things, come to think of it. He wasn’t too pacifistic by nature, but he was polite enough that it usually seemed that way, and he was definitely a solid rock in terms of temperament. Rocking the boat wasn’t his style, so out of all the people to have tracked him down and cornered him, Jim hadn’t expected it to be his former helmsman.

“Hey,” Jim said when he couldn’t ignore him anymore. Sulu had been patient, sliding across from him without a word and waiting for him to finish, but there was nothing particularly tolerant about the stifling silence or the pointed way that he could constantly feel Sulu’s eyes bore into him, a silent condemnation of the fact that he was drawing it out. Sulu didn’t usually accuse verbally, but when he was displeased, he either made it impossible for you to figure it out, or made it so obvious you’d have to be purposefully ignoring it. Which really, was impossible to do for long.

“Hey,” Sulu replied. Making a small adjustment on his PADD, he replaced it into the inner pocket of his jacket and folded his hands on his legs. His gestures were slow, regulated, and calm, his shoulders relaxed. “I came to see how you were. And it’s not a coincidence that I decided to. Pavel let me know you commed.”

You contacted one, and you inevitably contacted another. The senior crew had been more than just the Captain and her bridge crew; she’d compromised of all the senior ranking officers commissioned on the Enterprise, and they all had at the very least good colleagues to each other. Sulu and Chekov had been close enough to classify each other as best friends. In the time since he’d woken up and chewed them all out in angry rashness, Jim had almost forgotten.

Within the heavy weight in the air was an almost daring tension. Jim didn’t ask after it; it wasn’t his business. “I’m doing fine, if that’s what you’re asking. You?”

“I’ve been spending my off-time in simulator when I’m not busy with that qualifying course.” Sulu shrugged. He looked very calm how he was, uniform stretched across his shoulders, well-kept even if the look on his visage didn’t nearly look as picturesque. “I’m not going to get another chance to pilot, you know? I’ll be in the Captain’s chair, and I’ll be responsible for my crew. I’d better damn well know how to run the new one, or we’re all fucked.”

Jim did know. Being a Captain was a full-time job, and if the dark circles beginning to show on Sulu’s face were anything to go by, he was going through a whole load of something else on top of it to make up for the incoming promotion. It didn’t look like the new ships were very easy to manage; it was a whole new interface: new security codes, new everything.

Marcus had done more than design a new ship. He’d optimized something clearly meant and optimized for combat, and done away with exploration entirely. Scans devoted to recognizing entire energy signatures, weaponry advanced and dangerous enough to total an entire Enterprise model starship, the Vengeance, of all its capability, needing to be hidden among the far reaches of Jupiter in order to be hidden from the scanners back on Earth—Jim had been on the Vengeance’s bridge, but it’d been a prototype at best. Frightening, and definitely not something he’d ever want to have been in charge of.

That Sulu was doing it and managing wasn’t surprising at all.

“You handled being Captain pretty well, you know. Bones was impressed.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sulu said. “He told me. We went out drinking on Friday. It was nice. The new ship’s complicated. I can’t w—I miss the Enterprise.” He didn’t ask after Jim’s assessment of anything, and sighed. “What’re you up to these days?”

“Getting some work done,” Jim said, hedging. “And trying to find someone to represent me.”

“I think Starfleet provides military lawyers,” Sulu offered politely.

“My lawyer and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye.”

The stare Sulu leveled him with was very neutral, slightly assessing, but he didn’t ask. That was the thing with Sulu; he never did anything that made you uncomfortable unless he was supposed to put you on the spot, or intended to—which Jim didn’t think had ever happened. “Do you want a list? I know some people.”

“No, it’s fine,” Jim said. “I have someone in mind.”

Quite a few times down the road, Jim had been the recipient of many a disappointment. Having said that, there was nothing like the look Sulu was giving him now. Between the two of them, they’d established the kind of camaraderie that didn’t carry a lot of drama in it. Marginally less surprising right now was the fact that Sulu almost seemed hesitant to talk to him.

“Sorry,” Jim said. As it had with Uhura, it rolled awkwardly off his tongue; at the same time, the look Sulu gave him wasn’t accusing at all. Instead, it was patient. “About before.”

“I wasn’t insulted,” Sulu said. “I could see where you were coming from. I don’t blame you at all.”

“I don’t really think Chekov thinks the same way.”         

“You weren’t exactly at your best, but he knows that. And he knows you’re not infallible.” When Jim didn’t respond, Sulu leaned back. Jim took a moment to study him, wondering exactly what kind of a person who could put aside personal justification to be objective and fair. Because looking at it, Sulu had every right to be angry. He had every right to yell, he had every right to criticize, and he had every right to be furious for the way Jim had treated any of them.

But he wasn’t, and that was something that had always been partial to Sulu.

Glancing up only once before he looked at Jim again, Sulu said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Jim said, surprised at the low quiet tone Sulu was employing. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Sulu didn’t push for it, but the furrow in his brow was more than enough, and the way his gaze lingered expressed quite firmly that he didn’t agree with him. “I heard from Uhura that you went to see Spock.”

Satisfied and mellow mood with Sulu aside, Jim could feel whatever light-heartedness had been present plummet to his stomach. He could very well guess exactly what Sulu had heard. Coupled with the fresh memory of exactly what had transpired in that apartment, Jim grimaced, rubbing his mouth with one hand. “Don’t remind me.” Sulu waited patiently so Jim hashed over it. “It didn’t go well. I ended up yelling, Spock told me to leave, and I left.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sulu offered.

“Don’t be.” He hadn’t meant for his tone to come out sardonic, but it was bitter enough that Jim really didn’t think it mattered anymore. He glanced slightly at the material on the PADD, but all he could think about asides from the United Federation Code was that the words were beginning to swim for him now. “I mean, at this point, there’s no point in talking about it.”

The two of them were sitting on the seated edge of the wall meant for people to study with the sunlight. Right now though, the sun had begun to set, and the San Francisco fog had begun to roll in outside, if what Jim was seeing as he glanced out of it was any indicator.

“Commander Spock’s sentence.”

It was so abrupt that Jim could almost feel his face twitch, but he didn’t turn it forward. ~~He~~ Jim chanced a glance out of the corner of his eye. “What about it?”

Sulu showed no signs of being intimidated, but his face did something else. “It’s set for the end of this week, or the Monday of the next.”

Starfleet wasn’t even showing any signs of slowing itself down. Heaving in a breath, Jim whistled slowly. “That was fast.” Assuming Spock was in self-imposed confinement. He felt sick.

“Fast?” Sulu’s face morphed into one of contemptuous disapproval, voice lowering in volume. “You have no idea how much Starfleet is playing with this. They want to keep it quiet, but they want to make an example. Even I can’t figure out what they’re going for.”

“What? Like I’m not good enough anymore?”

Sulu smiled, succinctly amused, before it vanished. “Guess not.” He hesitated too, as though he were deciding on and against saying more. “Promotional boards are meeting up next week too.”

Changing the subject on purpose. Jim didn’t know whether or not to be grateful.

“Right. You got your notice a while back.” Jim couldn’t help but try to force a derisive grin. “Have to be at least a Lieutenant Commander to captain the ship.”

“They have to fill up the active duty lists, right?” Sulu shrugged. “Not really surprised. There are a lot of us in the promotion zone right now. It’s pretty competitive.”

“They probably want to get the trials out of the way. Trials, promotions, reassignments, oh my.” Jim leaned back and closed his eyes. “This is enough to make a man want to sleep and not get up.”

From the other side of the window bench, Jim could see the man roll his eyes. “You think you’re tired?” Sulu demanded, tone actually _snarky_. For Sulu, that was. “Try playing diplomacy with the engineers. They hate everything about the new ships, and they think it’s everyone’s fault.”

Jim chortled. “Sulu, I can see your grouch from here. Go home.” For someone who was really casual and easy to get along with, it was plenty easy to guess what kind of dark thoughts Sulu was harboring.

It was good to hear Sulu laugh in kind. “Well,” Sulu said jovially, and when Jim opened his eyes, Sulu was staring out the window, and then at the chronometer on his PADD. “I’m definitely not shuttling all the way back at this time.” He shot Jim a grin, one that was more than the usual polite quirks at the side of his mouth and a slight flash of teeth—this one was practically baring them. “Guess updating Pavel on the fact that you haven’t lost your mind yet isn’t going to happen.”

“He thinks I’m crazy?”

“Go ask him,” Sulu shrugged. “I don’t speak genius.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Where are you staying?”

“New assigned quarters. It’s a pretty cushy set-up, but it’s kind of too big for my liking.”

“Too big?”

“I’m a humble man.”

“That, I don’t doubt. But I’m taking it you haven’t slept in the bed yet. It’s magical, is all I’m saying.” Jim wriggled his eyebrows.

“No kidding? Alright, I’ll take your word for it. Maybe I’ll just build a small garden to fill up the space.” Sulu sighed. “Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I’m done here. You wanna come see how it looks?”

“I’ll pass,” Jim said, trying to stifle a yawn. “I’d drop dead once I hit the entrance anyway.”

Sulu stood up with the air of someone who had a plan on where he was going next. Pausing as he gathered his PADD to his side, he gave him an assessing look.

“For what it’s worth,” Sulu said finally, tone level. “I respect you more now that I know what it’s like to be doing the Captain’s job beyond just sitting in the seat. But,” he added cheerily, “I think between you and me, you need some down time. Go to sleep sometime tonight, alright?”

Jim couldn’t help it. He smiled, even when he knew he wouldn’t be doing anything of the sort. “Roger that.”

\--

Talking with Sulu had helped him calm down and rationalize somewhat. It was hard not to; Sulu possessed a very calming atmosphere and as well as a very distinct way of looking at things. He just went with it, no matter what the change, and he adapted well. He had no great over-expectations, and gave respect as much as he got it.

The library closed around eight. Jim avoided the cluster of cadets and officers who straggled their way out, hounded over by either exams or what have you, subconsciously choosing a side door to leave. Before he left, Sulu had warned him about the reporters. Usually the military didn’t warrant much news—Federation or not, the armed forces preferred to keep any scandals to a minimum, and citizens really didn’t care for the most part if some unknown officer was arrested, only when it concerned them. If the brass wasn’t keeping the Enterprise’s decommission under wraps, he was pretty sure there’d have been more of an out roar. The Lady was a favourite.

Still, there were always one or two that hung around, and quite a few channels on MediaComm had some questions to ask high-ranking officers when command couldn’t be reached for comment. Jim was pretty sure his and Spock’s court-martials had been at least reported in the news, along with the suspension of Bones’s medical license, and probably any issues Starfleet took with that as a result, because they’d hired Bones as a doctor and not anything else. He wasn’t keen on checking it out to see exactly what they had to say, on him, them, or on his crew, and he kind of planned to keep it that way if he could.

He skirted around the perimeter, and found his way back to the tide. Jim meant to stay only for a little while (it was a pain, what with the fog), but he ended up staying there for hours until the sun rose, thinking.

\--


	3. Chapter 3

Having signed his AMA discharge form, it wasn’t like Jim was all that keen to return to the hospital for a place to stay. The Academy barracks weren’t his thing either. The Enterprise didn’t have a history of touching back down to planet very frequently, and even during shore leaves she stayed up in orbit. Now she stayed in a shipyard somewhere to be quietly decommissioned, while Jim wandered around San Francisco, trying to put off meeting with Garrovick as much as possible. The man had sent one comm to remind him to make time in his schedule for another appointment on the available days he had, and had left it at that. Jim didn’t know if he wanted to go find another lawyer or not.

Jim didn’t really know what drew him to do it. He hadn’t heard from Bones in a long time, and trying to comm him left him with an answering machine and not the actual grump of a person himself. It was pretty obvious Bones was busy with his own things, and Jim had never been one to actually care before he interrupted, but with how things had happened, how the last time Jim had seen him he’d exploded—well, there wasn’t exactly a how-to manual for how to act after that. It was one thing when it was stupid stuff like the fact that Jim didn’t know how to take care of himself; it was another thing when it wasn’t just one of them who had fucked up. So he took his PADD and remotely activated the GPS in Bones’s Starfleet issued comm, and that was how he found himself standing outside of Spock’s apartment again.

Jim was starting to realize that maybe this was a bad idea.

Then the door opened.

“Jim?” Yep, there was Bones, and to Jim’s surprise he looked only slightly less well-rested than he had before, but it didn’t excuse the jitteriness to his movements. It almost reminded Jim of the first time they’d met, Bones being shovelled out of the bathroom, strapped in, and wanting to bring someone into his misery with him, ever a pessimist. “What are you doing here?”

“You okay, Bones?” Jim asked breezily.

“Jim, wha—”

“Are you throwing up, sick, or are you coming down with Andorian shingles?”

“No, Jim,” Bones said exasperatedly.

“Are you sleeping at night?”

“Yes, so what--”

Jim nodded. “Alright, cool. Just came to check up on you. Bye.” He almost left in absolute control of himself when Bones’s hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him back. Jim didn’t fight him, but he went resentfully as he was turned to face his friend. “What.”

Bones looked frustrated with him, face reddening. “You know,” he said angrily, sharply, and Jim hadn’t heard it in so long that he’d kind of forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of Bones’s anger. “I don’t know who’s the worst at communicating, but I’m done with diplomacy at this point.”

Jim found himself summarily shoved into Spock’s apartment. “Bones, what—” Before he fell, Bones hooked his arm around Jim’s own and steered him to the main room where Spock was sitting there frozen, with a mug of what was probably tea in his hands. Jim wasn’t a child. “Let go, c’mon,” he ordered, pulling himself back and straightening himself.

What a mess.

“Hi, Spock,” he said, surprisingly more evenly than he thought.

He really didn’t expect Spock to reply. “Jim.” In a flash, Spock had stood up. “You must leave,” he said, and if Jim actually cared at this point, he might’ve said Spock was panicking.

Leaving was completely the very thing Jim had planned to do, but he didn’t like Spock telling him. He didn’t like the idea of just going along with whatever Spock had inevitably tried to do to himself, or how Spock tried to shut out anyone who cared.

He stood where he was. “You know what,” he said loudly, “I think I’m gonna stay.” He put himself on the same seat that had been offered to him last time, trying to communicate with his eyes in all his might. Just try to kick Jim out again. Except Spock wasn’t looking him in the eye, so Jim had to settle for just glaring at him.

“For the love of God,” Bones said angrily from where he’d been absent, now toting a hypo in one hand. He cuffed Jim’s ear sharply.

“Ow! What the fuck, Bones!” Jim’s collar was pulled down and he heard the tell-tale hiss of a hypo. “That better not be a sedative—”

“Jim, shut your mouth.” Jim did. “Good. Now take a breath,” Jim gave him the worst look he could muster, but Bones’s bedside manner was apparently not for negotiation today, so he did as he was told, trying to look as angry and disgruntled about it as possible. “Don’t be an infant, breathe out. In. Out. Good. It was a nutritional shot, for crying out loud.”

“Oh,” said Jim.

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Bones repeated sarcastically, hovering over Jim’s face. It was by the pure grace that Bones knew where Jim’s limits were when he didn’t try to shine a light in them or do a full check-up right then and there today. He did make a move at his tricorder though, and had the scanner out before Jim could react. “When was the last time you ate?” He cast an eye over Jim’s face. “Or slept?”

“I’m fine,” Jim said tersely, face flushing red, as the results on the tricorder reported the contrary.

Bones scowled, glancing up from the data and waving it around. “Spock fine, I’m sure.”

“Doctor,” Spock said from the armchair, looking like Bones had singlehandedly barged into his life and decide to take over it. And then he looked like he didn’t know what he wanted to say, because of course he couldn’t kick Jim out of his house now, or whatever he was thinking. Jim couldn’t tell because Spock was refusing to even glance at him, focusing so intently on Bones that Jim was beginning to think that Spock had convinced himself if he didn’t acknowledge Jim’s presence, Jim would just go away on his own. Tough chance.

“Now if there isn’t one of them, there’s two beings here with the most stubborn attitudes I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing.” Bones replaced the hypo, and sat back the chair in between the two. Spock visibly relaxed. “Talk.”

Bones shouldn’t have been surprised when they didn’t. It wasn’t like they had anything to say to each other either, because Jim wasn’t going to be talking until Spock started acknowledging all of his points, and didn’t bull-headedly insist he was going to take anything lying down.

“Do I have to start this? Fine. Jim, I—” The look on Bones’s face when he caught the position Jim was at might’ve been hilarious in any other circumstance, “Sit properly, you’ll ruin your spine.” Jim inched up only a bit. “Don’t you half-ass that, do you know what your skeleton’ll eventually look like if you keep that up? Sit up.”

“Bones,” Jim said frustrated, sitting properly, “What am I doing here?”

“That is the very question I would like to ask,” Spock said.

Jim shot him a look.

Spock was still looking away, face neutral as possible, looking only at Bones’s general direction.

“I’m not going to answer that,” Bones said, casting a glance in Spock’s direction. It was clear they’d been talking about something before Jim had arrived, because Spock kept looking at Bones as though he was trying translate and pick apart some obscure subtle body language. “Because now I see the two of you have somehow digressed to children. Jim,” he said, addressing him, “Spock’s sentence has been put under appellate court jurisdiction.”

Whatever dropping feeling in Jim’s gut subsequently froze. “What?” He glanced at Spock, whose face looked way too grave for someone who had gotten the chance for an appeal.

“Yeah, don’t he look celebratory,” Bones grouched, but it was the in disbelief kind he usually had when he couldn’t believe Jim was an idiot sometimes. “Apparently if there’s a death penalty involved, there needs to be an appellate review, whether or not our friend Spock here wants it or not.”

It changed a lot, was all Jim could think of numbly. “Appellate review,” he repeated. Spock still wouldn’t look at him. Jim would be angry, but right now, all he could think was Spock didn’t—didn’t have to die. “Bones, it goes to commanding officer after that, right? To decide?”

“Convening authority, actually. He has the say whether or not it’s a go or not.”

There was only one officer that fit the criteria.

“It’s Barnett,” Jim said immediately, and stood up. “Shit, I have to talk to him, I got a summons too, I completely forgot—”

“Hold the comm—when did Barnett become-?”

“It was on my arrest order, Scotty was assigned to give it to me,” Jim said dismissively, but he was caught off-guard by the look on Bones’s face. “What a shitty move, right?”

Bones sighed and looked like he’d aged more than enough years. “Jim—” he said, glancing at Spock.

“I have talked to him.” Jim said. “I’ve talked. I’ve said all I could.” He looked at Spock, willing with all his power that Spock might just break that Vulcan control somehow and just look him in the eye. “It still stands, Spock.”

“Spock, dammit it,” Bones said in the ensuing silence, “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of refusing legal representation this time too.” Jim’s blood ran cold. That meant there wasn’t really much any appeal could go on, if there was no one to argue for Spock’s case.

“If you would respect my wishes,” Spock said tersely, before lowering his shoulders. This time he looked Jim straight in the eye, with such a strong conviction. “Jim, I ask you as a friend and—”

“No,” Jim said. “I’m not listening to this, Spock. I’m done with it. You’re going to have representation.”

“It is a conflict of ethics.” It infuriated how patiently Spock was dealing with that. “I refuse.”

Oh, sure it was ethics. Spock wanted to die, and Starfleet hadn’t done military executions in centuries—what the hell, refuse that new chance anyway, what a good decision.

Jim was about to open his mouth and let Spock know exactly what he thought of his ethics.

 “You know what?” Bones said from his place, and then Jim caught the quick movement from Spock, who looked at Bones as though he’d summarily saved him. “Let’s move the conversation to something else before Jim decides to leave in anger and not come back.”

“I’m not going to leave,” Jim said, sitting down, face red.

“Good. We can use this time to apologize to you.” The stunned look on Jim’s face made Bones’s own face soften. It made everything about twice as complicated when Bones spoke as honestly as he always did—because Jim couldn’t even laugh it off. “I mean it, Jim. It hurt you more than it helped you.” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Jim didn’t know how to respond to that. He looked at Spock instinctively before remembering exactly what they were apologizing for, and swallowed.

“Spock?” Bones said. “Dammit, don’t you do this to me now. We were talking just about this before Jim got here, and now you’re going to have your mouth closed firmer than one of those darn Venus fly traps Sulu keeps waxing yarn about.”

“It’s okay,” Jim said. He really didn’t care anymore about the apology—he’d gotten over it in his own time. Bones, apparently, wasn’t going to leave it at rest from the look on his face. “Really, it’s okay. I didn’t agree with it, and I do agree you could’ve saved me the trouble and told me to my face—but it’s over. It’s fine.”

He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected that they’d be apologizing. He’d thought that the real answer had to do with himself, and that neither of them had wanted to say it. It wasn’t a stretch to say he was stunned or surprised—he was both. He felt relief he hadn’t expected to get, as though he could breathe again.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Bones said gruffly, giving Spock the evil eye, but not pushing it anymore.

Nobody spoke for a while. Jim couldn’t help but look at Spock again, and compare that to the look on Spock’s face the first time they’d spoken about his trial and its sentence. It was different somehow, from the calm peace, but Spock was as stoic about it as ever.

“Spock,” he said, licking his lips. “My trial’s coming up.”

Spock’s head raised to look at him.

“I’d just like to talk to you about it,” Jim said, trying to will Spock to understand with every fiber of his being what he meant. “About what I should do.”

There was nothing at first. Not a twitch, not any indication that what Jim had said had any meaning to him, face indifferent. Except Spock's eyes were looking at him now, really looking, and his frown had relaxed.

“Of course, Jim,” Spock said.

They were okay.

 

\--

 

In hindsight, Jim probably should’ve stopped doing things impulsively a long time ago.

“Jocelyn?!” Bones demanded. “What are you doing here?”

She pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. “That’s mighty rude, Leo, when the person you should be asking that is the man standing beside you.”

Bones looked at him. Jim squirmed, because he totally wasn’t looking Bones in the eye, and still he could feel Bones’s laser vision. In his defense, it’d been a much better idea when he’d been pissed out of his mind and had decided he was going to do something about both of their trials if they weren’t: Bones’s to regain his license, and Spock’s to overturn the sentence. Granted, that’d also been a while back and in the heat of the moment and before he’d talked to Uhura about the conversation he’d had with Spock, so he’d almost forgotten that he’d done it in the first place.

“Jim,” Bones said, in the lightest Southern accent possible, “What did you do?”

Jim laughed. Bones stared. The laughter trailed off into nervous silence. "I might've, uhm," Jim said cautiously, because a quiet Bones who stared at you without moving was quite possibly one of the most frightening things in the universe, "hired your ex-wife?"

Not a twitch. "You did what," Bones said.

"Fascinating," Spock said. He looked oddly sympathetic.

“She’s a lawyer,” Jim defended. C’mon, what was Bones expecting him to do? They were in a rock and a hard place, and if there were the lesser of two evils, then Bones’s ex-wife was it. “And you said she was a good one!”

Bones didn’t look furious, but he looked like Jim was severely testing his patience. Nothing new there. “I said she took the goddamned planet in the divorce. There’s a difference between marital court and military tribunal!”

“She knows that!”

“She does,” Jocelyn said.

“Sorry,” Jim said automatically.

“You’ll be representing us, then?” Bones said, after a lengthy amount of weight silence. Jim had to admit that this hadn’t been the best of his impromptu decisions considering he hadn’t bothered to give either of them a choice, but at least they weren’t trying to kick her out or something. “Do you know how it works?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” She folded her arms. “There is no way they would allow any lawyer without trial experience under their belt to represent an officer in court.”

“Right,” Bones said, mouth drawing into a thin line, clearly remembering something. He glanced at Jim, eyes warning. “Jim, we’re going to talk about how you need to mind your own business sometimes.”

“I know it doesn’t concern me,” Jim said defensively, “But at least now, Spock’s got legal representation, right?” He didn’t look at Spock, even though he couldn’t tell or not if Spock was angry about, or he’d come to be unsurprised about Jim’s decisions by now and was just going o go with it.

“That’s just the thing,” Jocelyn said. She wasn’t a tall woman by any means, but the impression she gave off in person was a lot more intimidating than the message she’d written back to him that he’d conveniently forgotten. “It does concern you, Commander.” At his confused look, she said, “Captain Garrovick’s an old acquaintance of mine.”

Oh shit.

“Commander,” Jocelyn said, “I’ll be very clear with you. This isn’t my jurisdiction, and I won’t pretend it is. I also won’t pretend I have time for whatever bullshit you are pulling with your defence counsel.”

Jim tried not to look like he was scared. Out of the corner of his eye, Spock was doing that one eyebrow thing he did when he was impressed.

 “So you and he-? Talked?”

“I was informed, Commander, because clearly keeping your case information confidential isn’t working. Look: Your prior sentence, by Starfleet command was to be stripped of your rank, demoted to cadet, and sent back to the Academy. Maybe that’s better or worse, because normally, what would happen is that you would be demoted one rank, and send to administration duties for the rest of your career. So clearly,” she continued, and Jim kind of almost felt like taking a step back, “they wanted you to learn your lesson, and they wanted to make sure they still had you later on.”

God, Garrovick did more than just talk with her. Jim was pretty sure this wasn’t even legally allowed, but apparently hell had nothing on a pissed off JAG. Or his pissed off civilian lawyer equivalent.

 “Are you proud of yourself, Commander?” Jocelyn demanded, when he didn’t respond to her right away.  Jim practically jumped. “None of us have any time to pander to whether or not something one of us says rubs you off the wrong way. When people like you do whatever they want, it makes it more difficult for us to do your jobs. So suck it up.”

Spock had now both eyebrows raised up in the way that meant he was utterly impressed. Probably it had to do with the fact she was kind of like Uhura, what with being so bold and no-nonsense bullshit.

“Joce,” Bones said.

“Can it, Leo,” she said shortly, and then sighed, visibly reigning herself back. “Commander, go contact your defence counsel. The two of you,” she directed towards Bones and Spock—Bones flinched accordingly, and Spock looked like he always did—“we are going to have a discussion about these files I have on me.”

“Can’t you represent me instead?” Jim asked, before he could help himself. Maybe she could scare them into submission.

Jocelyn gave him a look, and then raised her eyebrow.

“Okay,” Jim acquiesced, already dreading having to call Garrovick. “How about secondary?”

\--

When he went to check his comm, he had a message from his probation officer. Jim had forgotten all about it. Garrovick had promised to forward the request through in the first few days after the inquiry, but there hadn’t been a response until now. Now, Jim found himself stepping off a shuttle. There had been one place he’d left years ago, all eager not to look back. Look at where he was now.

He was hard-pressed to describe the feeling in his gut—maybe once upon a time it’d have been anxiety, but now all that Jim felt right now was lethargic and heavy, weighing down on his stomach. Exhaustion was piling up over his shoulders, and shuttlelag was settling itself down in the restlessness of his movements and the way his fingers twitched. Didn’t want to come here, or wanted to, it made no real difference.

It really didn’t take that long to reach the bar. The area was uncharacteristically dead quiet in contrast to how he usually remembered it, but then again, he hadn’t really been here for a long time. Christmas visits hadn’t really been a part of his comfort zone.

He almost passed her table, hardly recognizing her. When she had been younger, Winona Kirk had been a fierce enough yet agreeable mother that Jim had thought he’d found a bit of a friend in her. The years had caught up since. Tired lines stretched under her eyes and around her mouth, and the blank flicker of a glance in his direction caught him unaware.

She wasn’t wearing her uniform, but she was wearing a leather jacket, the twin of which was buried in boxes in the attic, if she hadn’t thrown them all out since the last time he’d been at the house. “Hey, Jim,” she said. There weren’t any officers surrounding them anymore, just the monotony of a half-empty bar on a weekday night.

Jim stood his ground, caught between calling her by rank or something else. “Mom,” he decided on. Then hesitated.

“Sit down.” She wasn’t looking at him now. Jim knew better than to think that she wasn’t listening. Her refusal to look at him wasn’t jarring at all. “You look like you’re going to run.”

He felt like it. Talking about things never seemed to solve them, only made things worse if past experience was anything to go by. Right now, surreal couldn’t even be placed as an accurate definition of this situation.

Jim sunk down on the seat without a word. For a moment, he didn’t know if he wanted to hear her out after all. It passed.

“Didn’t realize you hung out here,” he said, watching her carefully.

It wasn’t a lie to say he was calm; he was conflicted, and maybe he still held something against her, however petty it was. She’d been a piss poor mom, he knew that, but there wasn’t a part of him that didn’t instinctively want to know what she was still about.

“Bigshot now, aren’t you,” she said casually, and he watched her lean forward, hands curling around her drink. “MediaComm’s a wild crazy storm about you.”

“Must’ve missed it on the way here,” Jim said dismissively. He studied her. “How are you?”

“First thing you ask me is how I’ve been,” she replied, tone sharp. Jim didn’t flinch, but it made his lips draw into a thin line and his hand clench on the table either way. “That’s great. I’m great. You?”

“Great,” Jim said, even though he didn’t think that was the case. It just seemed like a good thing to say. “Last I heard of you was that you were Chief Engineer of your own ship. You’re not doing too badly.”

It was an old statistic, old anything. He was asking for something that was before he’d decided to leave Riverside, in the house she’d visited as much as she did when Sam had still been living there—which was to say, rarely and unnecessarily.

The tension didn’t wipe away when she looked him in the eye. If anything, it made Jim’s shoulders tense, and the urge to leave even greater. She seemed to be looking for something.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Jim?” She shook her head, and drew back from him, and with that movement she took everything that Jim gave a shit about.

“I was thinking whatever I needed to,” Jim said. He really didn’t need his decisions analyzed there and back. He’d had enough to last a lifetime, and he was tired enough that he just wanted to collapse somewhere and have a quiet evening to himself.

“You could have died.”

“My crew could have died,” Jim said, gritting his teeth. “Maybe that means something, you know? To have something I’d actually die for.”

 “Don’t,” she said tersely, tone warning. Jim knew it well.

“What do you mean, don’t? It happened.”

“I’m saying don’t.”

It wasn’t any of his business why she hadn’t chosen to visit him, but whatever he was trying to get from her, it wasn’t coming out.

“I’m not George Kirk.”

“Yeah, I get that you’re not George Kirk.” Her lips thinned into a line. “You’ve made that clear a long time ago.”

The sting didn’t even take anymore; at least it shouldn’t have. “Took a long time for you to get the memo.”

It hit close. Winona practically was reddening enough to explode. “ _Look_ ,” she said, “I’m not here to play this game with you.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “What kind of game?”

It was petty of Jim to do this; but if there was anything he and Sam had both inherited from her, it was the lack of patience for god knew what kind of shit.

“This— _this._ ” She threw up a hand wildly and dropped it just as heavily. The symbolism of the weighted body language flew right over his head.

“Just _what_ do you want from me?” Jim didn’t know anymore. All these years he’d been playing some fucked up kind of mental game that had revolved around rules that he didn’t even know existed in the first place. Between her career and how well she’d played out her role as a mother—Jim had no opinion on any of that. “Right now? What do you want?”

Winona wouldn’t look at him, and Jim found himself wondering if after all this time, this _bullshit_ was still happening. She didn’t respond. Then she looked heartbroken—that was the only, best way Jim could’ve described it. A realization had hit her, and Jim didn’t know what exactly, just that it did.

Her fingers curled loosely around the edge of the bar as she leaned back.

She didn’t say anything.

They didn’t make plans to meet again; at this point, Jim wasn’t really surprised anymore. Instead, he watched her leave without a word, and then sat back into the seat beside the one she’d just vacated.

Jim was exhausted. It was the itchy kind, the one that often was coupled with boredom once the adrenaline left. When you felt it, there were two options: alleviate it, or recognize that you were going to do something extremely stupid to curb it.

He picked up his comm and dialed.

\--

 “I don’t usually ask for rides home with strangers,” Jim said wearily, “but thanks.”

 “What I don’t want to know is how you knew I was here,” Scotty said, scandalized. “Do I walk around with a Designated Driver sign on my forehead?”

 “Between you and me, Scotty, I was surprised you even picked up.”

 “ ‘Course I would pick up,” Scotty replied. “Isn’t it—well. Y’know.” He cast a look at Jim nervously. “You wouldn’t be by any chance--”

 In the passenger’s seat, Jim wordlessly lifted up his left leg to the seat, and then the material of his pants.

 “— _oh geez a gobble—”_ Scotty slammed the programmed hovercar’s planned course somewhere off to a shoulder off the side of the highway, face reddening when they finally hauled to a stop. “Jim, you really need to warn a man about something like that. When did you--?”

 “Scotty, calm down,” Jim said. “Really. I have permission.”

 “All the way to the Iowa permission?” Scotty asked, flabbergasted.

 “Ye of little faith—yes. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t worry,” Jim added, “If I’m going down, I’ll say I threatened you.”

 “You realize that I’m not going to be driving us anywhere near where any stations,” Scotty pointed out as he returned the hovercar back on route.

“Exactly why I called you.”

 “Jim,” Scotty said, without taking his eyes off the road, “I’m not sure if you understand my drift. I mean to say I’m goin’ to the shipyard. I won’t be driving you anywhere else.”

 “That’s fine,” Jim shrugged, settling back into his seat even though a part of him felt sickened at the idea. On his off-days when they were all grounded on Earth, he’d sometimes visit Scotty whenever. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what she looked like when she was damaged. A long ride doing absolutely nothing wasn’t anything new to him either.

 Scotty’s face expressed exactly his consternations with Jim saying he was fine with it. Jim turned his own away, and glanced out at the passing scenery beside them.

They drove in silence a bit more, Jim tapping his hand on the side of the door. Scotty was either an otherwise very quiet driver or he’d come to sense that something was wrong. He hoped it was the former.

 “Alright, Jim,” Scotty said, a few minutes after Jim had finished counting the number of buildings they passed by and they drove out further, “Out with it.”

 Jim tried to lighten his tone. “Out with what?”

 Of all the things that Scotty could’ve said or done, he didn’t. Instead, there was an unspoken acknowledgement that there wasn’t a point on continuing this train of thought, and Scotty wasn’t the kind of guy who would push it.

 Somehow, this was worse than the alternative. Jim didn’t know if he wanted to care about it right now. The arrest order felt like it’d been so long ago.

 The exhaustion that’d piled up on the shuttle ride here was growing steadily heavier, and in the quiet, Jim’s thoughts built upon themselves. He thought about his mother, the look on her face. He thought about whether or not she deserved that. And from deserving, he thought about his crew, because it wasn’t about whether or not someone deserved it, just like Sam didn’t deserve to die in space any more than their father ever did.

 He thought about Sulu and his steady dedication to duty and how he’d captain the Reliant. How was he doing with that qualification course? Jim hadn’t had to do it; he’ jumped straight up, and he’d been assigned a ship. He’d gotten the easy route, a mentor who was in a position to teach him what he needed to know within the time before the Enterprise was to set out again. Sulu wouldn’t complain too much; the extent he’d done so was already an extreme. Jim knew him too much to assume that it’d change.

 He thought about Chekov being one day a commander, and taking over the conn when Sulu was downside—no, the two of them would make different command decisions, they’d find something that’d suit them just fine—and making little jokes with Sulu like Jim always caught them doing. The two of them would probably find a good niche for themselves in their new families. All Jim could think about now was that Chekov had told him once that he respected him. Jim couldn’t remember the context of it at all.

 And what about Uhura?  What about the kinds of messages she’d translate and all the things she’d do on the Naviga—she’d told him once that she wanted to be a part of the best, that she’d never settle for being a second. They’d thrown around little biting insults back and forth, but it’d come down to mutual respect and equal regard for each other.

 Bones. Bones was doing fine. Jim was so relieved about that. He hadn’t wanted to think about an alternative, because Bones was a doctor, and that was it.

 He thought about Spock and didn’t know what to think.

 Glancing back at Scotty, he watched for a while before turning his face away.

 It was too much.

 In the meantime, he watched the too nostalgically unfamiliar road diverge. Soon everything faded from view, the occasional hovercar coming the opposite way.

 --

 Nobody really asked you to apply for a visitor’s pass when you were with an engineer; it was like an invisible shielding device, advertising Jim’s authorized permission to be here, but at the same time, not really inviting anyone to be invasive enough to ask after his purpose. On the contrary, everyone seemed to either be trying to convince Scotty to help them out or give advice, or find him to sign something off, interrupting him several times as he explained to Jim what it was that happened here.

 “A lot of her parts can be reused, but we have to make sure they’re compatible with the newer models.” The anger in Scotty’s eyes was fierce. “Watch your step.”

 As they rose up the aerial lift to another elevated platform, Jim could see everything from scaffolding to ladders to fall protection, increasing more and more as they went higher. They passed by late night workers and the security guards beginning their shifts.

 “I didn’t realize there was a salvage yard right inside here,” Jim commented offhandedly. When he’d been younger, he’d thought that shipbreaking was cool; until he’d realized that’d meant he was interested in a long-term career in Starfleet working for people he’d sworn to hate on principle.

 “You want to kill the people taking apart the ship?” Scotty snorted, and didn’t even wait for Jim to reply. “Admiralty wants to take apart the ship and sell the scrap steel along with the parts. We’ve cut the power already,” he added, “And stopped the engines, but we’ll need to remove the warp core reactor. We want minimum explosions. Get rid of all the weaponry and get rid of the power to the phaser banks.”

Eventually, people working overtime were staring to clock out, and Scotty went somewhere, leaving Jim alone, though making him swear he wouldn’t do anything.

 He didn’t do much. He wandered around the areas that Scotty had shown him, climbed onto some of the scaffolding and looked in. Luckily, he didn’t fall to his death or anything, so Jim counted that as a plus.

 He’d never actually known what the inside of the Enterprise looked like beyond her bright lights and sparkly bits, and never on a scale as big as this. Never the big gaping hull, never how she looked stripped of her nacelles and split into parts. Sure, he’d first encountered her while each individual one was being built on land, but seeing the Enterprise like this made her seem so big and yet at the same time so small.

 Jim moved to a shallow part of her main body that didn’t have protruding parts. It curved slightly and offered a small place for his back and enough legroom that he could put his foot on it and bend his knee only slightly. He sat down, settled quietly, and listened to sounds half-muffled by the vastness of the space and to the echo he heard when he knocked his knuckles gently against a part of her hull that remained still intact.

 Lady laid to rest before her time was up. The tune sounded familiar.

 --

 “Anyway,” Scotty finished, and he looked marginally better than he had before, as they were rounding over and the housing peeked over from the distance. “You can stay over. Just mind expressing your height—Keenser’s a wee touchy about that.”

 “I didn’t know you were rooming with Keenser,” Jim said, surprised. Sure, he’d come across the both of them on Delta Vega, and when he’d signed them on respectively, he hadn’t questioned twice about the two of them being a part of his crew. Still, he’d assumed that with their respective ranks, it wouldn’t have had been a problem for either of them to have their own place.

 “Oh, that one wouldn’t ever let me hear the end of it. He’d drive everyone up the walls,” Scotty said. “He’s really a kind soul, but housing wouldn’t want to understand him, and like it or not, there’s been bad blood between him and the other engineers on the Bradbury.”

 Jim caught his eye. “And not between you and them?”

 “Hah, I know how to play the game enough by now, but there’s no sense in hiding if you’re too smart. They know it.” Scotty made a hrmph noise, as though he thought it was ridiculous. Jim had a funny feeling that this had some kind of a back-story to it.

They drove in past the security guard at the gate who waved them in as soon as he saw it was Scotty, calling out, “Thanks for the rum again,” as they passed, Scotty shouting back, “So that’s where my rum’s been!”

“Nice place,” Jim commented, grinning as he caught sight of all the flower gardens surrounding the parking lot.

“What can I say, bit of feminine touch never hurt anyone. By the way, our wee smart Chekov came a while back, actually. I almost thought he was visiting to shadow me some more.”

“He did?” Jim tried to look innocent. Scotty gave him a look.

“Ye wouldn’t have anything to do with it, would ye, Jim?” he asked wryly.

“No, definitely not,” Jim said, crossing his fingers. If he opened a little window in the PADD that Scotty had lent him to log into his account and check for any messages from Garrovick, it was totally subtle. “I mean, who would—”

“Not goin’ to fool anyone,” Scotty said, driving into a space and parking. “But bit of advice.” He tapped his temple. “Keep it to yourself.”

Starfleet housing apparently really didn’t change or differ much no matter where you went. Sure, there were some slight differences (probably due to different laws or whatever—Jim hadn’t signed up to be an architect), but for the most part, it looked like a residential neighbourhood filled with apartments. Scotty was staying on the second floor because he was paranoid bastard and apparently the elevator broke down every so often, so Keenser often found it difficult to go upstairs. Jim didn’t ask why they didn’t just fix the elevator themselves instead of waiting for a contractor; he had a nagging suspicion that doing it once probably meant elevator duty for the duration of a stay.

Keenser was actually there to open the door for them before Scotty could input his passcode.

“Jim’s here,” Scotty promptly informed him, brushing past his colleague. “’Round up the drinks.”

“Hey, Lieutenant,” Jim greeted with an easy smile. The sliding door closed behind him. “Sorry for intruding.”

In all honesty, Keenser didn’t look at all too disturbed to have his former commanding officer here in his residence at such short notice. Come to think of it, Jim couldn’t think of a time when anything got to him. Usually he found time to visit the Engineering bay whenever he could, and if Scotty wasn’t around, Keenser was usually taking over the duties with either a word, or a sparse, limited amount of words.

“Oh come on, this again for dinner?” sounded Scotty’s voice from around the hall. “Oh, bloody hell, never mind. Man survives on gettin’ a drink in his stomach more than food.”

Without looking too surprised, Keenser led Jim to what was the kitchen without fuss. It was clear he’d been in the middle of eating, since one side of the table was set and Scotty was scowling at a bowl on the counter. Keenser passed him by. From the set of plates, he carefully withdrew a rather ornate one, and filled a mug of what smelled like coffee with it. When he finished, he placed both on the opposite end of the table where a half-finished dinner sat, and gestured for Jim to sit down.

At first, Jim wondered how this was going to work, but it was clear the table had been modified and fiddled with just like every other furniture and appliance in this apartment. It split in half like a sort step from a set of stairs, and adjusted itself.

“Eat,” Keenser said.

“Thanks,” Jim said.

“Would it kill you to speak more than one word?” Scotty griped as he went through the cupboards with the ease of a drunken sailor. It was evident that this was a long-standing battle from the way Keenser was ignoring him now was resettling back in his seat like nothing had happened. “Oh, fucking—I’m getting the Romulan ale. Sit tight, the both of ye. We must’ve run out because I can’t seem to find it. Furious, I am, really—”

“Restless,” Keenser said, nodding to the open doorway Scotty had travelled through. The front door around the corner slid closed, cutting Scotty’s self-mumblings short.

“No kidding,” Jim said, poking gently at the plate with his fork. If Bones were here, he’d probably give Jim the biggest of scowls for his manners.

“No,” Keenser said, shaking his head. “Restless. The ship.”

“The Bradbury?” Jim asked, surprised, speaking through a mouthful of food. He’d thought Scotty probably would have been happy under the circumstances. “Well, I’m kind of not in command of you both anymore, so—”

“Think.”

“Right, I’m thinking,” Jim said, placating, swallowing down the leafy greens. They weren’t half bad. “And I’m thinking, okay, maybe things work differently on that ship than you’re used to on mine—”

“Commander.” Keenser looked him in the eye. Then he looked again to the door frame. Jim finally followed his gaze over. “Restless. Restless or?”

Maybe it was meant to be a hint, but it really couldn’t be a hint if Jim already had recognized it after a first glance. “There’s nothing I can do,” Jim said. Keenser gave him another look, so he tried again.  “I can’t. I’ve, I’ve lost my ship. I’ve lost my rank. I’ve lost my crew. What do you want? I can’t do anything for either of you.”

He watched, with a closed throat, Keenser tackling his own dish. It was near finished by now, and there was just one more bean that he kept trying to spear with a fork. “Eat,” Keenser said calmly. “Then think.”

“I’m thinking,” Jim said. “I think a lot. I think I’ve been thinking for more than just anyone and just—”

“Worth it.” Keenser gave his plate another look, and then nodded approvingly when Jim took another biteful.

“Keenser.” He hesitated. Keenser waited patiently. “You were stationed on Delta Vega a long time ago, right? Before Scotty was assigned the post.”

The extended silence was more solemn than quiet, but when Keenser spoke, he gave no indication of any such sentiment. “Good place,” he said softly. “Chief Engineer.”

“What?” Jim started. “You made Chief Engineer there?”

“File?”

“Yes, I checked,” Jim said impatiently. “But you know you’d have to forgive someone who has to approve over the files of four hundred people. I figured you were good, and I knew you two worked well together.”

Keenser’s face was only hard to read if you were used to human conventions of expression. The length of time he spent sitting on the other end of the table, empty plate before him and fork still in hand was indicative enough.

“How bad is it?” Jim said. He knew how bad it got and how bad it _could_ go, but outside of that was pure conjecture.

“Restless.”

Right, that word again. “Are you even on the same ship?”

“No.”

It’d been a throwaway question, but it took him off guard. He almost choked, and remained staring, wholly stunned. “What? Why would they do that?”

“Beagle.”

“Yeah, sure, there’s that, but-? What about you?”

“Reliant.”

“Oh. You’re going with Sulu and Chekov? That’s good. I was kind of worried all of you guys wouldn’t really be put together.”

Keenser didn’t move. “Not the point.”

“Yeah, I know, but—”

“Enterprise.”

“Shit. Yeah, does…does Scotty know?” What was Jim talking about? Of course Scotty knew. He’d had two weeks of a head start over Jim for one thing, to know the damage. And because starship repairs started immediately after a ship returned to spacedock because of how perpetually in motion everything was, if a starship was going to be decommissioned, then— “Is that why you’re here?”

Jim wasn’t stupid enough to think that these two were here because of chance or because they decided that Iowa had a nice view. The Riverside Shipyard was one of the larger ones, and when they weren’t using the space to build ships, they were using it for either long-term repair-work or a place for ships to be decommissioned. Where there were ships, there were engineers. Engineers went where they were needed, whenever they were needed, whether or not it was overseeing and undertaking emergency repairs, or not. Sometimes it took months on end, and others they took years.

“Don’t agree.”

“You want me to stop the ship decommissioning,” he tested, and watched Keenser’s shoulders rise and fall. Scotty’s shrug looked well practiced on him.

“Want,” Keenser acknowledged, as Scotty’s voice returned from the hallway shouting something about the cold and bringing drink.

Jim remembered the sight of the Enterprise, ladders all around her and trucks and vehicles, placed on her own in a salvage yard. At this rate, he realized, when everyone shipped out, they’d be gone before she was even finished.

Keenser sighed, as though in acknowledgement.

 --

Scotty had done more than bring back Romulan ale. He had several bottles with him, all hazardly wrapped in a non-descript brown paper bag that he dumped none-so-kindly on the kitchen table. By the time Jim was done with his one mug—Keenser had brewed some coffee while Scotty had still been swearing and breathing into his cold hands, and in the end they’d just inevitably added some liquor to it—Scotty was already well onto his third glass and angrily ranting away.

Jim wasn’t surprised to learn Scotty had put himself in charge of the decommissioning and had practically grilled superior officers to let him have at it, but the indignant vehemence with which Scotty spoke about how the planning process was going made him wonder.

“Why do it at all yourself?”

Scotty gave him a look. “Now, look, you’re in Command so I can somewhat forgive you, but do ye honestly think they know the first thing about doing it unsupervised and unchecked without making it look like a tornado ran through her? Oh, aye, decommission the Enterprise,” he muttered darkly under his breath as he took another chug, “‘it’ll still technically be the same ship’ indeed—my ass.”

“Waste,” Keenser said, not glancing up from his PADD. After the first forty minutes of Scotty’s rant, he’d wordlessly excused himself and returned with what were probably lists to send to his new Captain for approval. If Jim’s total recall was still accurate, it looked twice as long as the list he was usually sent by Scotty after a rather hazardous mission. Clearly either the warships weren’t practical enough for regular starship function as required by Starfleet regulations, or Keenser was looking to personally replace every piece of the new ship. Jim blinked, and then was startled to realize Keenser had caught him snooping. Without a word, Keenser winked.

What?

“That’s right,” Scotty was saying angrily, face reddening further, voice tight enough that Jim’s head immediately whipped back to look at him. Scotty was glaring at his drink. “No sense at all.” He waved his hand in the air, punctuating every word. “Listen. Perfectly good, functional ship in her prime, top-of-the-line, engineering marvel, warp core reactor the most advanced we’ve developed yet in this century! Damaged, but all should be good if we fix her.

“But oh, what’s this? Well let’s see, these blueprints from that psychotic Admiral Marcus should fit the bill, eh? Never mind he went completely mad and wanted to go out to war on the Klingons! Never mind that he stranded the bloody Enterprise in Klingon territory! Let’s use what he gave us! It’s not wartime, but I’m sure it’ll work out regardless of all those treaties we signed and the regulations we’re under. Just look at the firepower we have at our disposal now. I mean, looking from the Vengeance - they’ll surely get our peace-keeping motto! While we’re at it, why don’t we retire the Enterprise because we can’t be too damned assed to repair it! Build an entire new fleet out of this! Of course we have the credits for it, if we don’t have enough, we’ll just hike up the taxes. Make the Federation pay for something completely unnecessary when we’re already up to our eyelids in borrowing—”

He muttered angrily under his breath.

“A _year_ in service, and then she’s considered obsolete. The way I see it, they’re all mad. Not even with the amount of damage the Enterprise took. Well, no matter, we’ll settle it enough. Did you get a report?”

“I—no. I didn’t have time to read it.”

Scotty looked like Jim had ordered an entire platoon of phaser rifle-armed officers to sign his name on the hull of the Enterprise. “What? Is that any way to treat her? Keenser—” Without missing a beat, Keenser procured a PADD from out of nowhere. Scotty snatched it, fingers flying on the screen. He started with a bringing up the blueprints, and then inputted something in the side. Several areas were coloured in red and the damage levels lay at the right side of the screen in percentages.

Jim reached out and activated the holo version specific to Engineering PADDS, zooming specifically on the larger red areas. He cast an eye over it—it didn’t look as bad as he’d thought it would be, but considering that usually he skimmed over damage reports, maybe his memory was bad. He only really took stock of how much it was by the amount of replacement parts in the request reports he had to sign that Scotty would draw up. “Alright, talk to me, Scotty. How bad is it?”

“Warp core tampering asides, there’s fairly substantial breach at the engineering hull here,” he pointed, and Jim zoomed in, watching grimly as new numbers and figures flew by on a smaller area of the holo. “Then the starboard warp-narcelle here, move your hand,” he zoomed in and circled it. “Logs say you were in the middle of warp speed when it happened, so the other warp-narcelle overextended itself, but even that’s reparable **.** Big photon torpedo blast aftermath that caused engine and main power failure, messing up with our backup power. Landing damage, I suppose, but minimal.”

“How often does a starship get decommissioned?”

“Not very often, I can tell you that. Usually for safety reasons or treaty agreements, or what have you. Sometimes if the ship is more damaged than it’s worth to repair, but for the Enterprise—look.” Scotty switched the screen. “This is a usual damage report for her.”

It wasn’t any different, to say the least, even if Jim did usually run her ragged. “And you’re in charge of her, Scotty?”

“They’ll be taking her name too, once she’s decommissioned,” Scotty sighed.

“When’s the date?”

“Officially? Sometime soon,” Scotty said. “We’re due to finally have the go ahead, Keenser and I. Until then, we’re taking inventory.”

If it was already decided, why was admiralty waiting an undetermined date to issue the decommissioning orders?

Frowning, Jim stared at the holo. He passed his eyes over it, moving back and forth between the back of the ship to the lower end of it, pausing, and then returning. Something just wasn’t clicking together. “Scotty,” he said, “do you have the official administrative order?”

“Right here,” Scotty replied bitterly, bringing it up on screen. “Signed by the man himself.”

Jim looked over it, and sighed, shoulders dropping. “Of course.”

\--

Jim had been in other offices before, but maybe it was the fact that this Admiral was not someone he personally knew that made him nervous. It was certainly one thing with Marcus, with whom he’d attempted to appeal to on a sense of protégé-mentor responsibility, and quite another with Pike, whose office Jim had seen the inside of more times than he should’ve.

Where Pike’s read as a regular room, and Marcus’s read as immensely larger but all the while befitting an Admiral without actually being an office itself, Barnett was filled with more filing cabinets and windows with view to the Academy ground, located in the Administrative building for cadets, and frankly, someone Jim should never have otherwise come across again in normal circumstances.

“I’ll admit I expected to see you sooner in my office, Commander,” Barnett said, after Jim had announced himself and requested permission to enter. From what Jim had found out after the Kobayashi Maru inquiry, Barnett was someone who was leaning more on the neutral, un-Jim-Kirk hating individual side. It was kind of too bad Jim had probably pushed him towards the other side. “Come in.”

“Sir.”

“It’s good that you could come in at your leisure. I sent that summons at several weeks ago.”

Ouch. Jim tried not to flinch at the dry tone, reminded of what kind of history they’ve shared. “I’ve been busy, sir.”

“I’m sure however busy you were, Commander, that there is nothing more important than reporting to your commanding officer, who furthermore referred the matter of your charges to court-martial. You had amble opportunity to seek me out before it.” Folding his hands together, Barnett stared at him. “There won’t be a repeat of this.”

Barnett’s intimidation was working by the mere power of his gaze alone. Hopefully giving the impression he was unperturbed, Jim met it. “No, sir.”

“I’ve heard that you’ve recently accosted Commander Spock at his residence about his trial.”

It felt like an entire lifetime ago. “I was more or less willing to storm this place if I couldn’t find the answers myself about my first officer, Admiral. I don’t agree with the outcome. And I want to talk to you about—”

“So I assumed,” Barnett acknowledged. Now that they were more or less close enough for Jim to have a closer look, Barnett looked like he’d aged since the last time Jim had seen him, specifically due to the heavy dark circles under his eyes. “However, as I’ve inherited you under my command, I do take the brunt of responsibility over your actions. I am also familiar with how little you disregard it, as well as how little you respect your superior officers.”

It wasn’t true, he wanted to say, but Jim kept his mouth shut.

“Anyway, you can rest easy. That isn’t what I’m calling you in for.”

“Sir?”

“This.” Without really explaining it, Barnett withdrew a PADD from the side of his desk, flicking through it with relative ease. He pushed forward what looked to be an entire document filled with row of signatures. “What do you think this is?”

It was a petition of some sort, Jim knew that. But for what, he wasn’t sure. Taking it to mean he could pick it up and cycle through it to get a sense, he did so. Names flew by that looked very familiar, ranks and what have you, but there were also a great deal of other names Jim didn’t have a face to attach to.

He eventually came to the part where it wasn’t signatures so much as explaining the entire document. “It’s a notice from the Supreme court,” he said in wonder, eyes passing over the names of the judges. The Bench hadn’t done much except forward the filed writ petition itself, but from what Jim could see, it made a huge difference.

“It was sent to challenge administration’s decision to decommission the Enterprise,” Barnett said, as Jim continued through. “And I have my suspicions that the news might have something to do with your crew leaking it out to public knowledge.”

Barnett scrutinized him carefully. Jim focused specifically on the PADD. That was—he hadn’t expected this.

“I wouldn’t know about it, sir,” Jim replied, but he couldn’t take his eyes off it, catching several names in a row that—that. “They didn’t tell me about this.” His mind whirled because of what this meant.

How long must this have taken them? In the beginning Jim had just blown them off, thinking that all they had been involved with was just their reassignments. How many people did they involve?

Hints, behaviour, just—just clues. Think. When did this happen? He tried to think about anything they’d said or told him, any hints they might’ve tried to drop on him.

When Sulu had brought up the fate of the Enterprise when he, Chekov, and Uhura had been there—had they already decided what it was that they were going to do? What about the time Jim had spoken to Bones about it? He remembered talking about it, remembered that Bones had seemed so unerringly calm and steady about it. At the time, he’d chalked it down to him just trying to make sure he had someone to talk to.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized about instances. Sulu had complained about missing the Enterprise at one point because the newer ship had been so complicated, and had almost slipped out something. And what about the time Keenser had brought up the Enterprise? Maybe he hadn’t meant what Jim had interpreted it after all. Maybe that’d been what he had been working on his PADD.

And Scotty, who was the last person to sit quietly when it came to a starship, hadn’t he mentioned at some point that it’d be settled? He hadn’t paid too much attention to it, having been mentioned in passing.

Fuck.

They’d been doing this all along on top of everything else, and he hadn’t even. Jim couldn’t think.

Jim blinked furiously, swallowing past the lump in his throat, eyes almost swimming. He glanced up, but Barnett was looking politely away, leaning back in his seat and looking pointedly at another PADD.

Just. Just _fuck._

He went through the writing, recognizing Uhura’s ever matter-of-fact tactful composition skills. In formal tone, she stated that the USS Enterprise operated as an exploration and diplomatic vessel, functioning in other regards such as transport, escort, and observation/study. It had been commissioned and introduced into the regular force barely a year ago, and yet at this point in time, was currently the most popular starship around, based on several polls. Starfleet administration had decided to decommission said starship on the grounds of her no longer being space-worthy or meeting the current needs of the military.

She furthermore expressed that, along with decommissioning the Enterprise, the entire current line of active starships would be also replaced with more technologically advanced and more heavily-armed warships than current regulation allowed and only permitted during wartimes, mentioning several treaties and providing several links and a short summary of each of them. Uhura argued that despite the final decision made by Starfleet administration, the Riverside Shipyard had reported that the starship could be repaired at an estimated cost of 19 million credits compared to the estimate of exponential costs that Starfleet would borrow and spend, even going as far as to make a comparison chart before she concluded that there was no need to decommission the Enterprise, and that if it were so, it would create an exorbitant amount of debt to Federation citizens, and would throw away an esteemed symbol of the Federation.

Wow, Uhura, was all Jim could think, as he finished off the last part where Uhura recommended and encouraged administration not to take further action until an expert such as the Director-General of shipping ‘inspected and expressed their views”. He recognized several of the familiar points, and he was pretty sure he knew where exactly the economical cost report from the Riverside Shipyard had come from, but the sheer enormity of it all stunned him.

Out loud, he said, “When did you get this?” His voice miraculously didn’t give out on him.

“Shortly before your inquiry.” His commanding officer studied him. “While it is rare, Starfleet has had instances where an old or obsolete ship is left in commission due to public sentiment. Not many people are familiar with it. Wipe that look off your face, Commander.”

 “Sir.” His mouth felt dry, and all Jim could think of was that _the Enterprise might not be decommissioned after all_. He had to fight the smile. “What is administration’s final decision?”

“You will have to wait until your trial closer. Dismissed.”

Jim didn’t move, smile dropped completely. “Admiral—”

“Kirk,” Barnett said, but he didn’t so much as glance up at him, continuing whatever he’d been doing before Jim had interrupted. “Go to the hospital. Medical requested that they needed to update their records as urgently as possible, so I’d advise doing so right after you leave.”

“Sir, I’m perfectly healthy—”

“That’s an order.”

Jim straightened, put his heels together, and saluted before he left.

 --

 “Captain.”

 Jim hadn’t seen her at all in the time he’d been in the hospital, so now was a surprise. Considering her involvement, he was surprised she was out and walking in public eye until she started to glance round, and closed the door behind her. “Doctor Marcus,” he acknowledged, painfully aware that he was in a room waiting for his new doctor that had yet to arrive. “I wasn’t aware you also had a doctorate in medicine.”

 He put the smile on his face long enough that the friendly expression of hers was replaced by wariness, and she sat down beside him in other patient chair, shoulders straight. She wore dress uniform, and her hair had been tied into a military bun without a hair out of place. “No, Captain,” she replied, tone setting the mood for any future topics, “I don’t.”

 Though nearly every face of his senior crew had been around the MediaComm channels at least once according to Scotty who'd griped about it when Jim was leaving, Jim was astute enough to make a connection between the fact that her involvement had been covered up, and Marcus was still only ‘missing’. She’d come for a lot more than a how-do-you-do, especially here. “I’m a Commander and I was before that mission. Captain’s only when I have a ship. Is there a reason we’re talking here?”

It probably, Jim reflected, had a bit to do with Barnett.

 “I came to apologize,” Marcus said, surprising him. “I was told the best way with you is to say it up front.”

 “You’re not wrong about that,” Jim said, caught between remembering what other pointy-eared bastard in his life would say on the brink of either sarcasm or honest remark. “Did Admiral Barnett send you?”

 “No,” she said, giving him a confused look. “Not at all.”

 “Oh,” Jim said, confounded, and at a loss. “Then do you have something else to say to me, Doctor? Off the record.”

 “Nothing I say will be used against me?” The smile she offered him was brittle. “I’m afraid I’ve heard enough of that from my trial.”

 “You’ve been under court-martial?”

 “Commander,” she said, “Do you honestly think I’m not being charged for accessory? Starfleet doesn’t take too kindly, you know, those who step out of line.”

Jim stared at her, and she stared back. “How are you doing?”

It was enough for her to crack. “How am I doing? I want to _disappear_. There are _people hounding me everywhere_. I can’t go anywhere. The media knows, the reporters are everywhere, following me, recording every single thing I do. Your Commander sold me out.”

To say that Jim was shocked was an understatement. “Spock what?”

“I brought it up because I want to be honest with you. I want to talk to you face-to-face, and I want you to hear me out.”

There had to be a reason for this, but all Jim could think of was when the hell had Spock done this? “It must be something quite serious if it’ll warrant you accosting me when I’m going for a medical check-up.”

“That was me,” Marcus said. “I had a friend send that message.”

“You had me run around for my ID just so you could talk to me at the doctor’s office?” Jim asked incredulously.

“I had you run around for ID so I could speak with you in private,” Marcus said tightly. “You don’t realize how hard it was to send it. There are so many eyes on you.”

“Alright,” Jim said, leaning back. “I’ll bite, even though I’m pretty sure that no one would go through all this trouble for an apology.”

“Perhaps mine is a little bit more than one.”

Jim stared at Marcus without a word for a couple of moments. Her face wasn’t giving anything away, but it was certainly determined. What had she done everything for? While she was the daughter of a high-ranking Starfleet officer, she clearly had not lived her life in a bright, ever-scrutinizing spotlight as the MediaComm’s latest fling. “What makes you think I’ll get anything? For all you know, my trial could end with my discharge.”

“You’re right. I don’t know,” Marcus said. “But you have a bit of a reputation around Starfleet. People respect you for what you did to save the world. You’re a hero.”

She was _sucking up to him_ , Jim realized. Not exactly sucking up—Marcus didn’t give the impression of needing to suck up to anyone. Unable to let matters go, she’d forged her own documents to assign herself aboard a Federation vessel under a false name. She’d betrayed her father. She’d watched her father’s subsequent death. She’d taken the efforts to track Jim down and find him, and talk to him despite the fact that it could’ve backfired on her.

“So what is it that you want from me, Doctor?” Jim spread his palms wide open. “There’s not much a Commander without a ship or any power has to offer.”

“That isn’t true,” Marcus said, implying something else that she knew that he didn’t know.

At this point in time, Jim was _sick of it._

She didn’t do anything to warrant any anger, but right now, Jim could be convinced to make a compromise. “Doctor,” Jim said, taking care to enunciate his words, “I’d like an explanation.”

“My father,” she said. Jim raised an eyebrow. “I know, I do know, as does everyone else—head Admiral, of course he’s had to learn tricks down the road. But I know that man. As ashamed as I am now, and as honestly frightened I am for anything to go amiss with politics as they are: He must have had a contingency plan for you.”

Jim wasn’t sure what he was feeling. “Yeah, sure, okay. Let’s say I’m going with that. But what do you want from me?”

“When you call upon any witnesses or have your defence counsel present anything, don’t bring Admiral Marcus’s involvement into it.”

Little too late for that, but Jim wanted to see where she was going with this. “And you don’t think that’s suspicious?”

“Commander,” she said firmly, “I know you have evidence. I know you asked someone to look through the ship’s computers to get you a recording of my father threatening the ship. I’m asking you not to use it.”

The recording had completely slipped Jim’s mind after it’d been rejected as evidence by the inquiry, but he wasn’t about to let her know that it had. He still could use it this time, he realized. That was what she was concerned with, him making a scandal out of it.

“Doctor, as much as I appreciate your optimism, you clearly heard that your father had no intention in letting the Enterprise go.” Jim remembered precisely the one and quality Admiral Marcus had used it as a threat. “He wanted to cover his tracks, and he wanted us all dead to do it.”

“And yet, a whole ship for covering just the Captain’s mutiny!” Marcus insisted. “It would make sense for him to have crippled you all, figuratively or literally. He was a thorough man. Asides from a few of your command team—there aren’t any charges, or anything detrimental to their careers. Your crew are,” he watched her smile, “ _free_ men, walking outside any ridicule.”

What was her point?

“What do you get from this, Doctor?” Jim asked, studying her. She’d said earlier she’d talked to someone about it, that he appreciated being told right off the bat. But he couldn’t understand right now, what was so obvious. “Why all of this?” Why would Marcus do all this for a man who had-?

Marcus stared at him as though in disbelief. Jim gestured for her to continue, watching as she took a breath. “He’s my father,” she said simply, meeting his gaze forward. “I can acknowledge that the man who raised me did wrong, unforgivable things, and I realize this is selfish. But how can I allow anyone vilify his memory any further?”

This was where Jim’s capacity for pity ran short. “Your father tried to kill me and my crew, Doctor. I’m pretty sure it can be allowed.” ‘Vilify his memory’. Admiral Marcus had done it all on his own.

“He’s dead now, Commander. The threat has ceased to be. There’s no sense holding a grudge with how much it all escalated.” There wasn’t desperation in her voice. It was anger, tight in her throat. She blamed him, he realized. He hadn’t killed her father, but the chain of events had transpired as a result of all of his actions, and she held him somewhat responsible.

That kind of fucked up reasoning Jim was done with.

“Yes, dead, like my crew,” Jim stood up and faced her. Jim didn’t know her story, how she came about, where she came from, what she had been through, but it was strikingly clear to him that Doctor Carol Marcus had never been a part of a crew or had served anything other than maybe short-term before she’d snuck onto the Enterprise. She wasn’t indifferent to how many lives had been lost; but the implications of what she dared ask meant she frankly didn’t give a damn.

You signed up for Starfleet knowing you were either going be the very lucky few retired officers that would be saluted as you walked to your seats, that maybe you got to be part of a flag party and march in with the flags, or you were going to be gone and dead or whatever worse there was. It didn’t mean it was okay that the person responsible for their deaths was gone. Jim had been responsible for putting them all in a position like that, and Admiral Marcus wasn’t going to be pardoned.

Here she was telling him not to honour them. To pretend to every one of those dead people that any obligation to them was bullshit. How was this okay? How could she even think this was acceptable to him?

“I’m _imploring_ you, as an individual.” She hesitated. “Do you have family?”

Jim almost choked.

What. What—who had—

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to lose it?”

Family.

She was talking about losing family to him. Family.

Where the hell did she get off using that on him? Did she think it’d make him more amenable? Like mentioning ‘family’ was a magic word to get him to completely one-eighty, to convince him that Admiral Marcus’s memory deserved to be honoured when the time for military funerals came around, that his name deserved to be called with respect, that the asshole deserved to be honoured as the head of Starfleet command who had died, that he deserved to have an empty coffin carried forward as families and friends and colleagues mourned. Just because he was an Admiral? That Jim was more than happy to do anything she asked as soon as she said ‘family’ and take the fall for it?

Yes, why not, family?

Did he have any idea?

Sam was dead. Pike was dead. His crew was gone and never was going to serve with him again because they were either dead or moving on with their lives.

He had an estranged mother who he might as well be dead to, and a dead father he’d never known and who had never known him, whose memory he’d spat on as soon as he was old enough to know and stopped as soon as he was old enough to understand, whose sacrifice he remembered every day, because there wasn’t one where he couldn’t look at his own face and not.

“Oh yeah,” Jim said, and his voice was sardonic enough that he didn’t feel like punching something right away. He had to practically pry every single word out of his mouth, fury building itself, temper rising. “I actually do have an idea, thank you.”

She faltered, taking in a shuddering breath, and looking away from his face. He watched her swallow. “Commander,” she said, “my father was my family.” Like that was a secret.

Sam was all Jim had too. Look what happened there.

“And my crew was mine, Doctor,” Jim said sharply, because he still had a family, no matter how pitiful or broken or one-sided it was now. “And we both know how it turned out.”

She flinched.

He was furious, caught between pointing fingers and knowing that both sides could be blamed, and insisting angrily that he was on the side that had been wronged. He didn’t want to sympathize with Marcus, despite all that the man had done for Pike. He didn’t want to understand that the Admiral had been a father, and that what Jim had seen wasn’t all of him. That was nice, but that didn’t matter. Jim didn’t care.

“How many people died when your father decided to fire upon my starship?” he demanded, temper rising. “How many people with _lives and family_ was your father prepared to kill just because they were under my command? And how many of _their_ children will never know why it is that a parent won’t come home?”

She knew that. Marcus knew it and it was on the pained expression in her face. “Commander,” she said, her eyes closed tightly. “Please.”

Jim breathed in sharply and then breathed out, just as his comm beeped. He looked down at it, seeing the message, seething on the inside. “We’re going to talk about this later,” he said shortly, moving, but she stood in front of the door and didn’t budge.

“Commander,” she said again, and she was ballsy as hell, because Jim was one step away from exploding. “Hear me out. If you can’t promise me it, then please, just consider it. I won’t bother you again.”

Jim only looked at her. Marcus stepped to the side and let him pass.

\--

He did think about it, even if he didn’t want to, and even if his answer was firmly no.

\--

“Fancy seeing you all here.”

Uhura shot him a look from she was sitting in the booth. “Did you follow me here?”

“No?” Jim said, and he honestly meant that. “I mean, I kind of have better things to do with my time.”

“Sit down,” she chortled, and scooted over to make room. “I need to thank you. Spock actually started to talk to me about his trial.” She looked a little lighter than she had been in the comm since they’d last spoken.

“Really?” Jim asked.

“It’s more than I’d hoped for,” she said. “If Admiral Barnett allows for an appeal, that’d be even more of a relief.”

“He has been answering to my messages as well,” Chekov said cheerily from where he was sitting next to Sulu. Considering the difference of atmosphere that he’d had during the time Jim had commed for that brief request, he looked more at ease now. “I am thinking of inviting him to a seminar. Vulcans like combinatorics, yes?”

“All geniuses like computer science,” Sulu snorted from where he was eating. Though still very polite for most people, he was practically inhaling everything on a Sulu-level.

“Not much time to eat?” Jim asked dryly, watching everything disappear.

“Go figure,” Sulu said, after chewing and swallowing. “I don’t want to hear that from you. McCoy said you weren’t eating or sleeping. What happened to Roger That, you zombie?”

“I’m eating now, aren’t I?” Jim replied easily, reaching over to the console at the side of the booth to order. “Yum, yum, non-replicated food. Hopefully with no brains.”

“That has shellfish,” Uhura informed him before his finger pressed the button. “Remember, things aren’t replicated here.”

Jim faltered, scanning the list. “Shit, really?” He really didn’t want to have his airway close on him, and that just cut down on his options. “What do you recommend?”

“Order this one, I had it last week.”

In all honesty, Jim should’ve been suspicious with how readily she’d helped it, but he was going to say that comming Garrovick had frankly scared any sense of self-preservation out the door (he hadn’t even scolded Jim, just looked at him in that stern way for a long time, and then just continued on as though he hadn’t send his civilian lawyer friend from hell to chew him out), and subsequently was six minutes too late when he realized that his lunch had bananas. “Did Bones talk to you about my lack of potassium?” he asked suspiciously, poking at it with a fork. It bubbled curiously up at him. It also might have burped. Smelled kind of fruity.

“Yeah, I talk to everyone about it. Not like it works.” Jim turned to look at Bones, who was bringing in a chair from another table. His face looked tighter, and he looked tired as though he’d had to spend an all-nighter. Jim had a feeling Jocelyn was responsible for it, if the way Bones kept warily looking down at his comm was any indication. Rubbing his face, he said, “Dammit, where’s my coffee.”

“Ordered just the way you like it,” Sulu said, passing it on with ease out of nowhere.

“Why can’t you all be more like this man here?” Bones griped. “Hell on earth, caffeine is going to kill me. When I start hallucinating or taking it on an empty stomach, cut me off.”

“Did you eat breakfast yet?” Uhura asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Bones said, drinking his coffee anyway. Jim tried to subtly push his banana-pancake-soup-creature-something over and not look like it was because he didn’t really want it in his stomach. Bones gave him a look and pushed it back. “Eat your food, Jim.”

“Are you going to tell me to chew five times before I swallow too?” Jim asked incredulously, and was rewarded with the dirtiest look he’d had yet to come across on a McCoy’s face.

“I’ll tell you whatever I like,” Bones snorted. “Hey," he said to Chekov, "order me some eggs will you?”

“No bacon? Ow!” Jim had been jabbed in the side. "C'mon, what's the problem with--"

“Talk to me later about lifting that dietary restriction,” Bones retorted. “Which reminds me, where is my tricorder—” From across the table and beside him, there were three identical knowing looks. Traitors.

Jim was actually saved the embarrassment of being tri-waved by Scotty’s timely entrance. It wasn’t hard to miss it, actually. One minute, the inside of the diner was all warm and fuzzy, and the next, Scotty had thrown open the door, yelling loudly at Keenser who was practically walking in as calm as you please. Every face was turned over there as they made their grand debut.

“Oh, like you could’ve parked better!”

Keenser spotted them and continued moving. “License.”

“Yes, I know you have a license, but not on Earth! How many times do I have to say that? Oi,” Scotty said, as they neared the table, “There’s not enough space here.”

“It extends,” Uhura said wryly, and pressed another button on the console. Bones nearly got slammed out of his seat by the extending booth seats. “Whoops, sorry there.”

“I’m too old for this,” Bones grumbled. He clutched his miraculously unspilled coffee in one hand and sat next to Jim. “Eat,” he added.

Jim poked it again. It burped. Now it smelled like gasoline. “I think I’ll wait for it to cool down,” he said, before he noted Keenser’s intense glance. It almost looked as though he wanted to—“Hey, Keenser, do you want this?”

Apparently he did.

“Alright,” Uhura said, after everyone had settled, and Scotty was nursing a flask and Chekov had ordered another vegetable stew. “So you all know why we’re meeting today.”

“I don’t,” Jim said. “I wasn’t invited.”

“Well, now you are,” Scotty said jovially. “And all the more for it. Did anyone know Mister Spock commed me just this mornin’ and asked me how I was? Asked after the ship too,” he added, in a lower tone, “but y’know.”

Jim had no idea where the sudden personality change had come from, but then again, it wasn’t like Spock was just going around telling people he cared about them. He was asking after them, taking interest in their lives—Jim had a feeling about why that actually was.

Apparently, so did Uhura, after she shot Jim a look to let her handle it. It wasn’t until everyone had exploded with similar outbursts (or rather, Scotty’s face had reddened before he’d shouted in indignant disbelief, practically throwing a fit, while Chekov had stilled very quietly, and Sulu had sucked in a breath of air but didn’t look surprise), that Jim realized that Spock had kept that part of his own thoughts to himself. None of them looked shocked as they did anxious about him, so that meant they’d all had some form of clue that something was wrong, but hadn’t realized it meant Spock was suicidal.

The conversation moved on to how Spock was doing. When Bones had been suspended from his duties, he’d ended up at Spock’s place to check in on him, and inevitably, he’d ended up staying here by bullying his way. It reminded Jim of how Bones used to take care of him during their Academy days when he’d been a hell of a fuck-up, even if it’d been Jim who had made sure they were assigned. Spock didn’t welcome someone looking after him just like Jim did, but he hadn’t kicked Bones out either, and that’d been how they had been staying until Jim had arrived a few days ago, chasing after Bones’s signal.

“They haven’t decided his appeal date,” Bones said. “They’re waiting on Admiral Barnett to make a decision on where it’ll go.”

There was a solemn silence before Chekov said, “Keptin, isn’t your trial tomorrow?”

Shit.

\--

 Jim woke up with nothing but dread in his stomach, heavy like dead weight, staring up at a ceiling he hadn’t seen in months. He hadn’t gotten any sleep at all in the night, having pulled the thirteen hours once he’d returned to go over all the material Garrovick had sent to his account. Once he’d started, he’d quickly realized there was no cheat for this, nothing he could skim over. “Thorough” didn’t even come to cover the files. “Ridiculous” was barely sufficient. Starfleet hadn’t lost anything the day they’d decommissioned Garrovick from active duty to recommission him to JAG and court martial proceedings. If everything had went as originally planned and Jim had become Garrovick’s tactical officer, he was sure he’d have been run as ragged as he felt now. There were sections upon sections, where Garrovick had somehow put every qualifying link possible to another connectable source material, and then from that even more sections branching off. In the beginning, Jim had elected for just reading it, and had eventually left it, assuming there would be time to finish. As he’d gotten further last night, he had been forced to open a new file to make notes and his own connections between the texts. Even now, lying still, he was aware of the remaining time he had at his leisure, just as his brain was whirling with a nightmare of exceptions and legislations.

 Fuck.

He closed his eyes.

It’d been more than he’d expected—everything from trial procedure to pre-trial procedure to possible sentences: it was practically the entirety of Title 10. Jim supposed he should’ve been grateful at all that Garrovick had had the foresight of indicating which further sections were specific to his case, but there had been nothing else for it but gritting his teeth and reading on.

Rubbing his face as he sat up, he breathed out shakily. Then he did it again. Shave, he thought, reaching over and turning off the chronometer alarm he’d set the night before just as it began to blare. He let himself sit in the silence, before he moved.

Stumbling to the washroom, he forwent turning on the lights, instead ordering the blinds open thirty percent. Bleary-eyed and gripping the sink, an exhausted stranger stared back at him.

Jim had the sinking feeling that he wasn’t ready at all. Garrovick hadn’t taken it easy on him at all, and now that Jim knew all the possible things that could happen, had studied them in immense detail, he was kind of freaking out. What if it-?

It would work out. He was being tried at special court-martial, so the worst that could happen was a demotion to Lieutenant Commander, or a bad-conduct discharge. At least there’d only be three members of the panel, not thirteen like Spock had to. Even if it turned out to be a discharge, he had an automatic appeal as an option if it worked against him. So yeah, it was doable, and there wasn’t a law that went against him re-earning the extra stripe.

Smoothing out the wrinkles on his uniform, Jim sighed, and grabbed his cap. He tried not to think of how his uniform collar seemed tighter than it usually was.

Showtime.

\--

When Jim had arrived in the courtroom, he’d almost gotten lost by the sheer fact along that this place was a maze. There was a surprisingly large amount of cases dealt with every day, even if they didn’t all necessarily end up with a full tribunal. Luckily, Garrovick had been waiting by the door. He hadn’t looked impressed as Jim had sheepishly made his way forward and followed him to their seats, but at least Jim hadn’t been late.

The silence he was getting from his defense counsel actually made Jim more nervous than relieved that Garrovick wasn’t freaking out as much as he was. Jim knew how to deal with formal proceedings as well as the next person, but he doubted even Spock would’ve kept his cool. The court was split into two: a side for the accused and his defense counsel, and the other side for the prosecution who probably also doubled as counsel for the government. The tribunal sat on the sidelines, a railing before them, while the judge sat on the bench. All the while, the eyes of the panel went nowhere but at him.

Jim functioned well enough under pressure, but what concerned him was whether or not that function would be considered acceptable in court. By the time everyone had stood and been announced to the court and roll-call had been done, Jim had somehow found a way not to tense up whenever he was being addressed.

“Relax,” Garrovick said from his chair with his arms folded, as the other members of the court began to be sworn in. “There won’t be any surprises that you didn’t spend the entire night studying for.” It didn’t do for any reassuring, but Jim found a relief at least in the reminder that he wasn’t going to be doing all the speaking.

Jim took a shaky breath and when his name was called, he stood at attention.

The military judge proceeding over his case was a petite green-skinned woman, her grey hair in dreadlocks, donning long black robes. She looked over at him over her spectacles, unimpressed by what she saw. “I am Judge Hoffman,” she said, voice several octaves lower than Jim’s. It boomed across the courtroom. “I have been detailed to conduct a special court-martial by convening order number 1-70, dated 2259.89. Charges against you have been referred to me by special court-martial by Admiral Archer who has taken over as your current convening authority. Your defense counsel has been provided with a copy of the charges. I suggest you refer to it in the duration of this trial.” With a nod to herself, she continued. “I will now read you your rights. Until I have completed my explanation you are not to speak anything except acknowledge whether or not you understand. Is this clear?”

“Yes, Your Honour.”

“Commander, during this pre-trial hearing, I inform you that you have the right to cross-examine any testifying witnesses, of which who probably will appear and testify you: Lieutenant Racine, L. For any matter about which you want the witness to be questioned, you will communicate to your defence counsel, and he will do it in your place. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Honour.”

“The USS Enterprise’s damage report on the date of 2259.55, the USS Enterprise’s security camera recordings of the brig on the date of 2259.55 and the USS Enterprise’s scanner reports on the date of 2259.55 will also probably be introduced as documents and physical evidence. Do you understand?”

It was the same phrase he had to say again and again. He couldn't mess this up if he tried. “Yes, Your Honour.”

“I also inform you,” Judge Hoffman continued, “that you also have the right to call witnesses and present other evidence not previously mentioned, that which may concern any or all of the charges. As you have not requested any witnesses, that point is moot. I have, however, arranged for the production of other evidence provided for me before this trial by your defense counsel. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Your Honour.” It was good to know that Chekov had managed to send in the data in time for Garrovick to file it. At least Jim had that for a probably.

Probably. He thought about his conversation with Marcus.

“Furthermore, I inform you that as a judge, it my duty is to examine in careful detail the evidence provided that concerns any offenses or charges to which you plead not guilty, and to thoroughly and impartially inquire into both sides of the matter. I will call witnesses to the stand for prosecution and question them, after which, if you have any questions, you will, again, communicate with your defense counsel, who will then do so in your place. As you are presumed innocent until your guilt has been proved by legal and competent evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, it is also my duty to consider all matters and then decide upon an appropriate sentence, though I will remind you that only evidence presented during this trial and not statements will be considered. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Your Honour.”

She continued until she finished the list, going through his right to remain silent, his right to testify as a witness if he so swore upon it, his right to testify on only one offense if he so desired and not the others about which she would question him in detail, his right to remain silent if found guilty and not have his silence be taken against him, and also, if found guilty, his right to make statements that would not be questioned, despite any contradicting evidence, and his right to have his case heard specifically by either military judge alone or by the members. Then she listed his charges. Nothing new had been added.

“Now, before this trial, the prosecution may have agreed on a sentence with you on the condition you pleaded guilty to some or all of the charges. I have not been informed. Instead, by the end of this trial, I will provide an appropriate sentence, and the lower sentence will be used. Have you chosen to resolve your court-martial by agreement?”

“No, Your Honour,” Jim replied, fighting the urge to turn his head to look at the prosecution. The JAG there hadn’t offered anything like that in the slightest; he didn’t know what that meant for him, but that was hopefully a good sign.

Judge Hoffman looked down at him with curiously. Jim almost felt intimidated if not for the sheer fact she leaned back and nodded to herself yet again. “You may be seated.” She waited until he sat down before she continued—Jim kind of appreciated the top of his head not being talked to. “You will see that your panel has been chosen specifically by Admiral Archer from officers within his command. They are senior to you in both rank and grade. In order to assure that they are not biased, your defense counsel may challenge them. Does the accused wish to do so?”

Jim looked around at the faces. It wasn’t really like he had an option; there weren’t more than a handful of officers higher than Commander that were available for a court-martial. He was surprised that they’d managed to get three in the first place.

Catching Garrovick’s eye, Jim shook his head.

“No, Your Honour,” Garrovick replied. “The defense finds the court-martial panel acceptable.”

She made a noise in the back of her throat that sounds like a trill. “Trial will now commence,” Judge Hoffman declared.

 --

The prosecution began an opening statement that pretty much painted him as a reckless individual who had no place in being in command, never mind having captained a starship. There was a huge tale of every single misdemeanor and mistake Jim had ever had the unfortunate chance to make, ranging from things Jim barely remembered to ones he was practically horrified to know. The prosecution concluded that it was therefore no surprise that Jim had become an aid to the terrorist, and that the only conclusion that could be drawn from these actions was that Commander Kirk was guilty in all charges.

 Garrovick’s opening statement wasn’t nearly as flattering; he stated in no certain terms that the interpretation of evidence was always contradictory and never as concrete as the actual evidence itself. Yes, Commander Kirk had made some very dumb mistakes, but they were to be expected considering command had decided to make him skip ranks. (“Why’d you say that?” “I don’t pander. Just trust me, it’s better than kissing someone’s ass.”) He was an outstanding citizen otherwise. Garrovick’s final stance was that Jim was not-guilty on all charges. (“What do you mean not-guilty? I’m pretty sure no one’s convinced about the starship hazarding one.” “Kirk, we don’t do things by halves here. Two out of three members just need to find you guilty, and you’re out.  If you don’t like it, you’re free to get up and go ask for a new defense counsel.” “I’m not saying that.” “Good. Now pay attention.”)

Once the opening statements were made clear and presenting evidence and arguments had begun, everything actually passed by in a blur. Lieutenant Racine turned out to be a mousy-looking officer who the judge asked very firm questions to, whom the prosecution cross-examined, and whom Garrovick grilled so hard he was almost sent spiralling into tears.

At one point, Garrovick stood. “I present to the court the USS Enterprise’s recording of a transmission made on the date of 2259.55,” he said. “I trust in full confidence it will change several opinions.”

The evidence that the prosecution presented was pretty solid, but Garrovick timed it just right with showing the recorded transmission. Whatever glee or vindication Jim should’ve felt in any other circumstance didn’t come. Instead, he felt almost jaded, watching as the tribunal members sat frozen in their seats, and Judge Hoffman looked disapprovingly at what she was hearing.

It almost seemed like they would win, up until the prosecution objected and challenged reusing evidence from other court-martials.

"What?" Jim demanded, to Garrovick's silence. The man looked stern as always, eyebrows drawn into a furrow, mouth tugging downwards as his arms folded. He didn't answer.

How she’d gotten that, whether or not she’d gotten Chekov to extract the recording for her or she’d done it herself—Jim didn’t know.

Judge Hoffman didn’t seem to care, overruling the objection, before she turned to stare down at him. Jim might've also been convinced that she drew it out on purpose, pausing heavily at him to scrutinize him, and encouraging the rest of the court to do the same.

“Commander Kirk," she said at last, "I’m of the opinion you’ve been through a great deal these past months.”

“I’ve managed, Your Honour.”

He didn't expect her to smile. But she did, and not even unkindly, spreading her lips and allowing very pleasant, almost approving expression cross her face. Judge Hoffman leaned back. “You’ll keep on the monitoring device for a little longer,” she decided. Her eyes met Jim's again, the smile gone as fast as it had come that Jim almost had a heart attack. “However," Judge Hoffman continued, picking up her gavel, "I am acquitting you on all charges.”

Jim couldn't breathe. “Thank you, Your Honour.”

She scowled down at him. “Don’t thank me, Commander. Don’t make me see you again." And then: "Court is dismissed.”

So echoed the gavel hitting the block.

\--

Jim’s trial was over. He felt the weight of it practically lift up to the point that he couldn’t believe that past all of this, past everything—it was over and he was done. He’d made it out with a minimum sentence, and—it was _over._

And if Jocelyn was to be believed when he called her up, Bones was now grumpily reapplying for his license (“Too much goddamned paperwork!” Jim heard on the other end, before Jocelyn yelled, “Suck it up, Leo!”).

Spock, on the other hand, had no such good luck.

“We’re still waiting on Admiral Barnett,” Jocelyn said. “I can’t guarantee anything if I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve only got Commander Spock’s file, but even then, that won’t help me much.”

 --

 If you asked Jim, he wouldn’t know how it had gotten better, but it did, and he came to understand too, why Pike had filed those charges against him. Maybe it was erroneous to assume, what with having no way to confirm or deny it; Garrovick certainly didn’t have patience to “spoil him”, as he called how Pike had mentored him. Still, Jim couldn’t help but think more and more on that. That Pike had wanted a clean slate for him; he’d wanted Jim to acknowledge that he _could_ do better, recognize that everything didn’t need to hold him back.

 Spock’s trial actually got appealed, and he was acquitted. Jim didn’t know what happened or what the hell Barnett had decided, but as soon as it happened, Jim found himself instead with the rest of his crew and a sea of other officers at a promotional ceremony. Sulu was nowhere to be seen at the front, to his surprise, not called up, not anything, not even when the Lieutenant Commanders were ranked.

“What happened?” he asked, once Sulu slipped in beside him in the rank and filling the previously abandoned spot.

“Just wait for it,” Sulu said out of the corner of his mouth with a smile on his face.

By the end of the day, Jim was Captain again.

\--

 His first order of business was to order a full inspection and evaluation the Enterprise. The writ petition had been passed down into his inbox, with a small message that Jim was free to do (within reason) whatever he needed to restore her to order. Scotty hadn't even blinked at the Jim's request, sending the files and lists over for approval as though he'd known this was going to happen--either that, or just in case it would. By the time it was done and Jim had the report on his hands, Uhura filed into the office with a PADD, and put it on the table.

 “I hear you’re looking for people to fill your roster?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

 Jim stared dumbly down at the PADD, then up at her, then at his crew.

 --

 There might’ve been a group hug at one point. There also might’ve been Spock at the very centre of that group hug, standing very calmly and waiting until everyone got tired.

 --

They celebrated. Maybe it was a dumb idea, but when he woke up, Jim actually didn’t regret it.

 God. Jim probably shouldn't have drank as much alcohol as Scotty had plied him with, and he sure as hell shouldn't have tried to out-drink Chekov, who officially was going on Jim's Life List just for the plain simple fact that the last thing Jim remembered was Chekov drinking his twentieth round, Uhura casually marking out the tallies on her PADD, and Sulu still on his first bottle of rice wine. Thanks to the hypo Bones had probably stabbed in his neck last night (multiple times, if the soreness and the fact he couldn't even turn his neck without feeling the pain was anything to go by), his mind didn't so much feel the hangover as much as his body did.

 The spacedock was a blur of motion by the time Jim got there, almost at a run. Luckily, there wasn't much need to be caught. Freshly graduated cadets were rushing to their new assignments, engineers were barking orders left and right and arguing with transporters on the cargo, and the occasional Starfleet Instructor walked around with their PADDs, directing everything left and right. Jim might’ve felt nostalgic.

"Excuse me," he called out to one.

 "Name and rank," she said, barely glancing up at him. Then again, he looked like he'd just woken up, so probably he wasn't really going to get into her good books.

 "Captain Kirk, James T." He waited. She looked up at him and gave him a look. Jim felt offended on behalf of all post-night celebrating officers everywhere. "Please," he added, just in case.

 "You should've gotten your orders last night," she said. "Why are you asking me?"

 "I left my PADD back in my locker," Jim decided on, giving her a grin.

 "Shouldn't you know the name of your own ship?" she asked, exasperated. She was slow at typing, that was for sure. Jim checked the time on the spacedock chronometer. Fuck. Really, he was running out of time.

 "Captain. What are you doing?"

 Jim turned. His face lit up. "Spock!"

 "Why are you not at the ship?" Spock asked, as though he hadn't been sneaking a little bit of hot chocolate on the side while everyone had been blissfully drunk, and Uhura was making language jokes, and Bones was ranting about old time anecdotes.

 "Didn't get my orders," Jim said, to the raised eyebrow. "And spacedock's pretty big."

 "It is poor decorum for a Captain to arrive late to his own ship’s inspection," Spock reasoned, drawing out the sentence at the end.

 "Good idea," Jim said. "Lead the way."

 It wasn't long before the ship came into view, but just seeing it was more than enough to make a smile spread on Jim's face. The bridge was fantastic, wide open, and officers already ready at their stations.

 “Lieutenant Marcus,” Jim greeted, half-surprised, half in shock.

 She inclined her head at him, polite with her smile. “I see you’re a Captain again.”

 “Yeah, I—” Jim shook his head. “The recording—” No, that didn’t matter. “What are you doing on here?” On this ship precisely? Ever since his own trial, he’d been wholly confused by her decision to use the very recording she’d tried to convince him otherwise not to use.

 “I’m your new science officer,” Marcus replied. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”

 Jim stared at her, wholly confused.

 “There had better be a welcoming party, is all I’m saying.” The longer he looked, the longer he realized that she wasn’t bitter about it. She wasn’t regretting this at all. She was trying to make amends, somehow, even with how much they'd argued about the subject of disagreement. “I hear the Enterprise crew is the best of the best, after all.”

 There would still be tension, Jim knew that. But he wasn’t as bitter as he used to be either, even if he was wary. He recognized that part of her in himself. She’d get there, because she wasn’t her dad, just as he wasn’t his.

 If it came down to it, they’d get there.

 “Yeah,” Jim heard himself say. He grinned, and to his surprise, she smiled right back. “Welcome to the family.”

 After a walk around, he sat back in the Captain's chair, Spock standing with his hands clasped behind his back. Taking a moment to submerse himself in the feeling, Jim glanced around. Even on the bridge, his crew were discussing last minute adjustments and changes. Nothing could describe the pride he felt.

 “Lieutenant Uhura, open a shipwide channel.”

 “Sir.” A flash of a smile hidden with an otherwise professional nod, and then she turned back to her station. “Channel opened.”

 Leaning over, he pressed for the ship PA system.

 "This is the Captain,” he said. “To all personnel: You’ve made it aboard the USS Enterprise, congratulations. If you are actually assigned to another ship, you might want to get reassignment orders in or get to your proper destination before it’s too late, no matter how nice it is here. ” There was a snort from the communications station, whereas Sulu remained in control of his facial features. “For those of you who are joining our ranks, I welcome you aboard, and to quite a lot of you,” Jim glanced up around him, “I welcome you back.”

 He let the words settle before he took a breath and continued. “As you’re no doubt aware, this is the first employment of its kind. In this five-year mission, we will be exploring unknown worlds, and uncharted places. We may experience turbulence, and some of you may or may not be new here.” Jim shot a pointed glance at Marcus’s station. “I just want to know that all of you are pretty much the damn finest of Starfleet. If you didn’t already have the experience and potential to match, so be it. I look forward to serving with all of you. All decks, prepare for immediate departure, and take care to let any stragglers out nicely. Kirk out.”

 He leaned back.

 “Helm: thrusters.”

 “Moorings restracted, Captain,” Sulu replied, checking over his screen. “Dock control reports ready. Thrusters fired. Ship is now separating from spacedock.”

 “Ship has cleared spacedock,” Chekov reported dutifully.

 “Set course for New Vulcan, Mr. Sulu. Warp factor 3.”

 “Course laid in, sir.” It was the slight pause that made Jim look over just as Sulu looked up from the helm. Was it his imagination or-? "Shall I, Captain?"

 Jim grinned. "Punch it."

 A beat.

 “Shit,” Sulu said, and immediately began to punch in a sequence into his console.

 “Did you disengage the external inertial dampeners, Lieutenant?” Spock asked coolly from over Jim’s shoulder. Almost everyone looked back at him, and when Jim snuck a glance, so was Sulu.

 For a moment, he could have sworn there was a little tension; even Uhura seemed slightly anxious about it, and Chekov was looking between Sulu and Spock. Marcus looked suspiciously hidden into the depths of her console. Then the stoic expression on Sulu’s face smoothed over into a grin.

 “Did you disengage that stick up your ass, Commander?” Sulu replied.

 Spock raised an eyebrow at him. 

 Jim laughed.

 To boldly go where no man had gone before.

 

 

 

END

 

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Discussions of character death (past+present)/concept of death, language, characters drinking, past/present (implied) drug+drinking abuse, mentions of past traumatic events, survivor's guilt, suicidal character, talking about suicide, emotional warfare+conflict
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> Anyway, with that out of the way: Hello, and thank you, geebus. Thank you for reading to the end. I've been a bit dead this past year in terms of writing fic (I have been writing stuff, just never ended up with complete stuff), but I digress. Just, hello, hello! AND SCREAMING. Thank you for reading to the end! You made it! I made it! We made it!
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> I wanna thank some people (this is the part where I disregard grammar I've already been disregarding, but with only more disregard):  
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> First off: HOLY FUCKING SHIT. First off, hats off to Nikanika who returned with me for another year. Even though you were so immensely busy, you stayed up with me to look through my wronky English (which I really have no excuse for seeing as English is my primary language), but ahh, thank you so much! You helped me so much in the beginning of this fic, when I was writing all the confrontation scenes and I wasn't sure if things flowed right--you reassured me, and your opinion IS SOMETHING I VALUE A LOT okay so just ahhhhh thank youuuuu!  
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> Second: shit, man, what is with this counting thing? But that's okay. Secondly, gotta thank Jay! Jay's my best friend in my entire existence, and even though she doesn't understand--why the hell am I using third person. HEY JAY IF YOU'RE READING THIS I LOVE YOU A LOT! Thank you so much for looking through it and answering my questions. You're not in the Star Trek fandom, and you sure as hell don't know who's IC and who's OOC (neither do I, come to think of it, but that's semantics), but you pulled through for me in betaing, and you always are so encouraging and spirit-pumping, and just thank you a lot okay!!!!!  
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> Third: HELLO MOMO! Hello, hello! Geebus, okay, I have to thank you because holy shit, you're my AO3 fic auctioner, but you were so superbly patient and understanding! And even when I didn't reply in e-mails, you kept the conversation going and I'm never going to forget how much that means to me! Like dude, all the links you give me (from crack to art to music to references??? DUDE) all the cheerleading you did? It would be a big disservice to your wonderful existence if you didn't get a big thank you from me. Thank you for being so wonderful!  
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> FOURTH: the cream of the crop, SYPH. Holy shit, Syph, I don't even know where to begin, but hey, let's just do this: This fic is dedicated to you, and for a number of reasons. The first of all being, this fic wouldn't have been nearly as thorough or as wonderful as it is right now without your input. You spout ideas like a magical idea inspiration hose, and dude, without you, this fic would be a Jim without his family, which is to say very lonely. Err, probably not the best of examples to use, but just WOW. IT HAS BEEN MY GREATEST PLEASURE TO WORK WITH YOU AND I CAN'T WAIT TO DO SO IN THE FUTURE because goddamn! (Also guys, if you're reading this, Syph is the one who's gonna be responsible for me continuing Mongoshitfacedtabletwisters (soon)?? Maybe one day. THANK YOU FOR SUCH A GREAT PATIENCE)  
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> Fifth, how could I forget, the STBB support comm. The mods were super nice, and accepting my draft into it, and just having that support comm was so nice. You don't know how nice it is until you go there every weekend and see a post without fail. Though I don't often post there, just knowing it is there is inspiring and enough, and sometimes I go there to stare at the awesome gifs ahhhh  
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> SIXTH,TO EDDIE: THANK YOU FOR BEING SO PATIENT AND WONDERFUL. Guys, if you haven't already, look at Eddie's art for the fic??? IT'S SO COMPLETELY WONDERFUL AND I WAS SO GIDDY AND I'm so delighted you think so highly of my fic, because I think the world of your art! For real, I was kind of showing it off (sorry if that's a bit much), but you were an absolutely understanding and just really nice person, and I really appreciate you. Thank you for making my first collab big bang a really wonderful experience.
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> FINALLY AND LASTLY AHHHHH TO YOU WHO HAS READ ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THIS:  
> Thank you for reading! I hope it was worth every minute of the time you spent, and that you liked everyone here. I have a lot of things I'm proud of in this story, and some others I'm a little iffy with, but on the whole part, I love it a lot, and I hope you do too. Cheers!


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